Country diary: Thatching in the rain is unpleasant, but not impossible

The finished thatched roof. Photograph: Tom Allan

This is not the weather to be a thatcher. Today, like every day for weeks, it seems as if the rain will never stop. When it does, it soon begins again. The Devon fields are a sog, the roofs like sponges.

Still, some work can be done. The top of an English thatched roof is capped with a wheat ridge, held in place with hazel pegs called spars. Fitting a new ridge does not require the rest of the building to be exposed to the elements, so rain is not an impediment to work. It can even make the ridging easier, as wheat is more pliable and easier to shear when wet.

Hazel spars (or pegs) are soaked overnight before being used to hold a thatched roof ridge in place. Photograph: Tom Allan

The hazel spars used in the ridge need to be soaked overnight to become flexible enough to twist into shape. A water butt or wheelbarrow will do, but at this house on Dartmoor I have something altogether more rustic: an old pig trough, carved out of granite and shaped like a giant doughnut. I fish out my spars and see a diving beetle paddling away from me, down towards the submerged remains of sycamore leaves.

Once the hazel is driven into the wheat, even the strongest gale won’t dislodge it. However, there is a perilous moment when the straw is on the roof but not yet fixed. As the gusts strengthen, a handful of wheat is whipped from my grasp. Bundles I spent hours preparing in the shelter of the barn are lifted off the roof and scattered across the garden 30ft below me.

Rain clouds over Poundsgate in Dartmoor, Devon. Photograph: Tom Allan

The rain pushes in with the wind. It moves sideways off the hill, past the overgrown beech tree hedge, round the granite chimney and across the ridge to where I am working. I continue until my face has gone numb, then retreat to the shelter of a thatched log store. I stand there in my dripping oilskins, arms held out from my sides like a child on the beach trying to escape the discomfort of sandy hands. The rain leaves the eaves in trickles.

When the clouds are finally torn away, the sky goes blue and a flock of fieldfares pulses overhead. Their pumping, gliding flight carries them along like paper toys on the wind. It’s time to get back on the roof.

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