I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
And stops my mind from wandering
Where it will go…
Cattail tops about to be bent over the ridge.
Thatched roofs get holes in them. Especially at the very top of the roof at its ridge. Here’s the hole from the inside…
Leaks are poison to a house frame. Leeks are yummy with potatoes.
…and here it is from the outside:
Ridge-work, not bridge work.
The cap at the ridge of the roof has its fixings exposed to the weather. The wooden spars and sways (wooden rods) which keep the thatch will give way after a few years.
You can see the exposed spar in the middle of the X. The sways to the left are where spars failed after several years to the weather, leaving the cattail unsecured and a pawn to gravity.
What’s a spar, you ask? Here’s a video of Justin making one:
Spars–sometimes called broaches–are like wooden staples securing thatch to the roof. These particular spars are made of hazel. They are relatively easy to make and each thatched roof in our re-created village should have hundreds and hundreds of them.
They’re weakest at the bend, however. That’s where they tend to fail. And that’s why roofs need their caps replaced more often than the coursework of thatch forming the pitch of the roof. There, the fixings are covered by the thatch.
Before we twist them, we soak them in water.
Hazel is a name you just don't hear much anymore...
Once Justin has enough to keep him busy, it’s away to the roof with more cattail for the ridge.
No poses were harmed in the making of this picture.
Cattail, which we harvest in local marshes in the summer, is good for caps because it folds over quite nicely. We’ll blog about our excursions to the marsh for thatching material in the coming weeks.
King of all he surveys. So that would make him King of Bert's, and Sandy's, and Bradford's...
A couple days of work and a roof is newly capped. Until the next repair…
What is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow with thatch in its beak?
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Rick and Sarah Whitehead, friends of The Riven Word, are doing some really amazing things on a mountain in Portugal, not the least of which is building a timber-framed house using locally gathered materials and riving 7000 chestnut shakes! We encourage you to visit their blog:
http://www.portugalpermaculture.blogspot.com/
Tags: 17th century house, pilgrim house, Plimoth Plantation, thatch
African or European swallow?
Leeks are also good with fish – check out the fricassee of fish at the 1627 wedding on Saturday – recipe soon to follow in Pilgrim Seasonings
Thanks, Kathleen. Here’s the link to Pilgrim Seasonings, Plimoth’s foodways (are we still using that term Kathleen?) blog:
http://blogs.plimoth.org/pilgrimseasonings/
Nice job as always–keep it up–
Thanks France–we appreciate your readership!
Maybe the cattails in my mud puddle pond aren’t simply the nuisance I thought! I got my copy of “The Artisan of Ipswich” 2 days ago, stayed up far too late reading it, it’s a very interesting book covering topics I had never thought to wonder about ( and giving me food for thought on some that I had). Thanks again for the recommendation.
Great to hear, John! Rob Tarule puts it all together in a very unique way, doesn’t he? That cattail you have must be of the fresh water broad-leaved variety. Plimoth’s Wampanoag Indigenous Program uses the broad leaf cattails to make some amazing mats. The stuff we cut is from a tidal saltwater marsh, and the leaves are a little narrower.
Never hurts to thatch with a little help
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9224441/Norfolk-dog-joins-thatcher-owner-on-rooftops.html
I love this video. That Norfolk dog is a true friend, isn’t he? Do they hit the local watering hole together after a work day, I wonder? Thanks for the link, Seamus.
I’ve been trying to find out what cattails are for years. Now I know. We call them reeds! Thank you so much. Nice work.
Thanks, Marianne. It gets a little confusing, doesn’t it? Cattails are called “reed mace” in Gerard’s big Herbal book. I get the sense that the word “reed” means a lot of different things to different people in different places. We will also use the taller, more hollow phragmites reed which we find locally, but it’s likely an invasive variety, not the native version. The two are very similar in appearance.
Thank you. Reed mace I know well. Gerard I know better!
I am guessing the thatched roof houses hold up better against wet weather than the clapboard roofs you have on a couple of buildings. It’s hard to see how board roofs keep a building tight against rain, especially roofs made of riven clapboards.
Thanks for another great posting.
John
Thatch requires a bunch of maintenance, John, but it’s definitely better than clapboard roofs in any century, and thatch shows up in our primary source documents. We’ve clapboarded the roofs of auxiliary-type buildings for the most part–the animal shelters, the forge, etc–but not the “dwelling” houses. A clapboard roof will very likely leak, however carefully the boards are dressed.
We have a couple of roofs which are shingled as well. We know from records just after our period that the colonists begin to rive shingles for their houses. A shingled roof is a better roof than a clapboard roof. And there’s evidence a bit later of “board” roofs, which could mean a couple different things. I’d like to try pit-sawing out boards and battens for a roof at some point. But as the most direct reference to roofs is thatch prior to 1627 in Plimoth, it will always be the most common type of roof we exhibit.