Long Straw, Edlesborough, Bedfordshire.
Thatching
The Thatchers Craft
Jigsaw Puzzle.
During my first years working with Norfolk Reed Thatchers Ltd. I was placed with a thatcher called Bill Hobbs. Bill was a man of few words with a military discipline. Thatching had been a career change for him, and I remember well these words of assurance;
‘I thought I’d never understand it, but if you stick with it, the pieces of the puzzle will start to click together, and you'll see the big picture’.
Bill wasn’t wrong about that, but what he didn’t say then was that if you look beneath the first puzzle you’ll see there are many others to piece together.
The first puzzle is understanding the basic methods of thatching. The pieces of the craft puzzles that lie beneath the surface can take a lifetime to find and put together.
You’ll find the pieces of the first puzzle here:
