the.com/thatch
the original solar panel: dead grass that outlives the architect who laughed at it
means Thatch is a roof covering made from dry plant material like straw, reeds, or rushes, layered thickly to shed rain; the word also means a thick mass of something, especially a person's hair.
from From Old English 'þæc,' meaning a roof or covering, with the related verb 'þeccan,' to cover. It belongs to a deep Germanic family — a cousin of German 'Dach' (roof) and 'decken' (to cover) — and reaches back further to a root meaning simply 'to cover,' possibly related to Latin 'tegere' (to cover, as in 'tegument' and 'protect'). The same ancient impulse that named the roof named the thing that hides and shelters; over time the noun ('thack') and verb drifted, and 'thatch' settled into both the stuff on the roof and the unruly stuff on your head.
- lifespan
- good thatch lasts 50 years before reroofing
- fire myth
- properly packed thatch smolders, rarely flames
- living roof
- hosts insects, mice, even nesting birds
- prestige
- now costs more than tile in England
- ancient craft
- oldest roofing material humans ever used
pennsbury manor — william penn's 17th-century pennsylvania estate with authentic thatch roof restored in 1939
cotswolds villages — english stone cottages with thatch roofs in bourton-on-the-water and bibury, built 16th-18th centuries
irish cottage thatching — traditional trade still practiced in rural ireland and county kerry, using water reed and wheat straw