Roof thatching, rattan furniture making and crystal glass cutting are among 70 'critically endangered' British crafts at risk of dying out. Heritage Crafts has issued the stark warning in its latest ...

GRASPING AT STRAWS is all the rage among a growing number of British homeowners, as Mark Phillips now shows us: When it comes to housing design, it's hard to get more retro than this: a thatched roof, ...

A new school in Ireland is training up a fresh generation of thatchers in a bid to save the country's disappearing thatched roofs, an iconic feature of the Irish landscape. In a hall in Portnoo ...

A master thatcher said it was important to "safeguard" the industry or otherwise villages risked "losing character". Poor harvests of long straw over the last two years, aging machinery and shortages ...

At the Donegal Thatching School, master thatchers teach their skills to help preserve Ireland's long tradition of thatched-roofed cottages A new school in Ireland is training up a fresh generation of ...

Hampshire and Dorset's thatched roofs are a truly iconic sight, their undulating, honeyed curves a quintessential part of the English countryside. They are a part of the counties and a craft that has ...

How does a thatch roof work and why don’t they leak? When visiting northern Uganda last week, I asked a wise soul, whose name was Francis, how a thatch roof actually worked. Francis’s nephew, Erick, ...

The custom of continuing to thatch farm buildings with rye straw throughout the 19th and into the 20th century was among the most intriguing. This traditional craft was handed down ...