Two poor weather years and a move away from traditional long-stemmed winter wheat have been blamed for a shortage of thatching straw. The National Thatching Straw Growers Association (NTSGA) says ...

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 ...

Thatch is a dynamic craft. It has always been in constant change. Not only using a variety of locally grown materials when appropriate, but also in improving skills, changing techniques, and creating ...

Thatching guidelines have been relaxed due to the failure of last year's harvest of long-stemmed wheat straw, which has led to thatching straw doubling in price as the critical shortage becomes ...

The Berkshire village of Inkpen where, on a sunny autumn afternoon, two English craftsmen are rethatching an ancient barn. There have been straw roofs in England ever since our ancestors came out of ...

A craftsperson at British Silverware in Sheffield. There are concerns that the crafts used in silversmithing are being lost.Photograph: British Silverware For many centuries the cities, towns and ...

Asked to picture a traditional village scene in rural Oxfordshire, many people would point to a thatched cottage. But in fact, the craft of thatching has changed radically since the 1960s. Before that ...

Thatched cottages were a feature of ancient Britain. But like so many traditional crafts, thatching has failed to attract willing young apprentices. So what made one 19-year-old quit sixth form to ...

A boom in demand for thatched roofs has rescued the centuries-old English craft of reed-cutting from the brink of extinction. New schemes have been launched to begin harvesting reeds commercially in ...