Thatching and thatchers in Melbourn

When two March hares recently appeared on the roof of the newly re-thatched house, belonging to Nicola and Ed Emery, on the High Street in Melbourn, people stopped to admire them and asked questions about thatching.

The house was thatched by the Dodsons, a well-known family concern going back three generations.

The family business split some years ago and now trade as ‘Clive Dodson’ and the ‘Dodson Brothers’ and it was Stuart Dodson one of the ‘brothers’ that worked on the thatch in the High Street (front cover photograph). Both families have been heavily involved in thatching throughout the village for many years and can name each house, when it was re-thatched and what material was used. Clive was responsible for the roof restoration of Sheepshead Row at the north end of the village in 2001–2002.

Melbourn had its own thatchers too. The Stanford’s were a well-known family in the village, and at one time one of the largest landowners in the Parish.

Over the years the family members had a wide range of occupations, although it is not surprising given Melbourn’s rural surroundings, many worked as agriculture engineers and labours. Daniel Stanford who was born in Melbourn in 1839, worked as an agricultural labourer until he was in his 20s when he turned his trade to thatching. His two sons, Cornelius and Reuben, followed their father into the trade as did his grandchildren. The family were still thatching well into the 1990s. Often referred to as thatcher Stanford, the family are remembered by the naming of Thatcher Stanford’s Close at The Moor.

Thatcher Stanford working on the White Lion Pub now the Co-op car park. - Melbourn History Group

Thatching methods have been traditionally passed down from generation to generation as with the Dodson and Stanford families. It is one of the oldest crafts and the methods of construction have largely remained unchanged.

1934 Working on a cottage that once sat between 64 and 66 High Street - Melbourn History Group

Thatched cottages and farm buildings were the norm until the mid 1800s as thatch was the only roofing material available to the bulk of the population both in the countryside and in many towns and villages.

Thatched barn at The Cross - Melbourn History Group

A good example of a traditional barn can be seen at Wimpole.

A traditional barn at Wimpole

Many parish churches were also thatched and in Cambridgeshire, two of these still remain; All Saints’ Church in Rampton, and St. Michael’s Church in Longstanton.

St. Michaels Church in Longstanton

By the early 1900s, thatch became a mark of poverty, and the number of thatched properties gradually declined. Being so combustible did not help as Melbourn has witnessed. The village has seen a number of devastating fires during this period, destroying around 50 buildings. By the 1920s a thatched roof was viewed as a liability and as it came to the end of its life, rather than re-thatch, many owners and tenants simply covered the roof in corrugated iron sheeting to keep them water tight.

In 1930 the government introduced the Housing Act which encouraged local authorities to clear away housing deemed to be ‘slums – unfit for human habitation’. As many of the houses in the village were of thatch and wattle and daub they came within this category. Properties that were poorly maintained, deteriorated structurally very quickly. Around this time over 30 cottages were demolished.

The deterioration of a cottage in Norgett’s Lane - Melbourn History Group

Following these changes, the number of skilled master thatchers in employment, passing on their knowledge from father to son, had dwindled to a few. However, today opinions have changed and a thatched cottage is seen as something to be preserved. As a result, over the past 30 years the art of thatching has seen a resurgence and has become much more popular.

In the past sheaves of corn were stacked either in a barn or in a rick yard and the stacks thatched to keep out the rain. Threshing was a job for the end of the year when there was more time available. In the centre of the Lincolnshire village, Osbournby, there was a special rick yard, owned by the farmer with the most land, with ricks, or stacks of unthreshed corn, where the threshing machine, hired and used by all the farmers, was parked after the harvest. The smaller farmers brought their sheaves to the yard for threshing, which became an annual event as villagers gathered to watch.

In Cambridgeshire long wheat straw was the most common thatching material and is said to have a life expectancy between 30 to 40 years. Water reed the rarest and most expensive can last between 70 to 100 years. Sedge and bulrush was also used. Combed wheat reed (wheat straw which was combed to remove leaves and ears) was used on the remainder. Of the thatched houses in Melbourn five used water reed, seven used combed wheat reed and long wheat straw was used on the rest.

Most of the cottages had originally been ‘hall houses’, where there was no chimney, and the fire was in the central hall. You can still see this in some houses by the smoke blackened beams, or when the original base thatch is revealed when rethatching is carried out.

Hall House in Little Lane - Melbourn History Group

Thatchers have their own styles, but on most roofs the gable end is tilted up, it is said to prevent witches from landing. The thatched ornament (finials) on the finished roof such as the hares in the High Street, originally started out as a religious symbol, to protect from evil, and witches of course. The designs have been recorded from as far back as 1689. Later thatchers used these as their signature, the Dodson’s started out using a pheasant, but these days thatchers offer a variety of ornaments, including planes, pigs and of course hares etc, many of them, are hand made locally. One of the strangest finial can be seen in Trumpington High Street in Cambridge. This odd looking decoration is known as the ‘Flying Spaghetti Monster’.

Many of the old types of wheat with long straw have become extinct and other materials are used, sometimes imported, such as veldt grass from South Africa where it has always been used for thatching. Thatchers such as the Stanford’s grew their own long straw wheat on farms around Melbourn and the Dobsons still grow their long straw near Huntingdon. Winter wheat is the best as it has had time to mature and is therefore stronger. In and around Melbourn little water reed is used as it is more expensive and although today much of the water reed comes from Norfolk, in the 1800s the reed came from the fen between Melbourn and Fowlmere. Transport added to the cost as a horse and cart only covers one and a half miles an hour at walking pace.

Often medieval materials are found in the base layers of thatch, as only the weathering coat and roof ridge have been replaced. Several layers of thatch are used. The base layer is often of two parts. First a layer to support the thatch if battens are not present. This was usually of woven hazel or willow withies. Over this was a layer of threshing waste, as nothing was wasted, and the thatch was attached to the roof starting at the eaves. The straw was first formed into bundles on the ground, about four inches deep, which were stitched into place on the roof forming the top coat, the weathering coat. The ridge is the most important part in keeping the roof water tight, and needs repairing more frequently. The pitch of the roof is also important and the steeper the angle the more quickly water is shed. Traditionally the base of the roof consisted of rafters with a ridge pole across the top.

Roofs can collapse if too many layers are used when repairing. This happened to Sheep’s Head Row cottages, where five weathering layers were found. The most layers recorded is seven, which would have taken two or three hundred years to build up. Since the mid 1800s wire netting has been used to cover the thatch to prevent pests from getting in.

The BBC visited Melbourn in 2018 when the house in the High Street was thatched. The program ‘A Wild Year’ will be aired in the autumn.

A carving at St. Mary’s thatched church in Ixworth Thorpe, of a thatcher dressed in his Sunday best. His fashionable clothes date him to the second half of the fifteenth century. He has a side rake at the readyand a knife for trimming; his tools have remained unchanged, for over half a millennium.

Listening in

The well known phrase ‘eavesdropping’ refers to a time when houses were low and had thatched roofs which extended out beyond the wall of the building. People sheltered from rain under the eaves and were thus in a good position to hear what was being said in the house. At one time it would have been possible to walk the length of a street under the eaves.

WHAT THE PAPERS SAID

Thatched Barn at The Cross

For generations a wooden, straw-thatched barn has stood opposite the church at Melbourn, its end used as the village bill-posting station. Two years ago it was purchased by Howard Bros, bakers, who decided to convert it into a shop. It would have been a very simple matter to demolishthe barn and erect an up-to-date brick and slate shop but happily the brothers have a wide knowledge of the village’s history and would never consent to the spoiling of this old-world corner.

Cambridge Independent Press 31 May 1930

Fire hazards

Thatched cottage dangers. In the opinion of some villagers, especially of those living in thatched cottages in the High Street something ought to be done to steam lorry drivers who allow their engines to emit sparks when going through the village. Often, especially at night, one may see showers of sparks coming from the steam engines, which go puffing, snorting and clanking down the street. The stentorian noises are bad enough, but the showers of sparks are even more alarming and on one of the hot and dry summer nights, which we expect to arrive very soon, some of the sparks are likely to be the cause of a big fire.

Royston Crow 8th July 1932

The falling house of Melbourn

A thatched cottage in the lane leading to the Primitive Methodist Chapel (Dolphin Lane) collapsed at 2 a.m. in the morning. The family of Stanford were pitched into the garden. There were no casualties, and the accident was blamed on frost in the clunch.

Royston Crow 5th February 1886

White Christmas

A thatched cottage at Melbourn collapsed about seven o’clock in Sunday evening. The bedroom end of the house fell out, but, happily, Mrs Greig was in the bottom room and escaped injury. She would not move however until the policeman came on Monday morning. She is now living in a cottage just opposite.

Cambridge Independent Press 27 December 1927