There is also a machine now to prepare wheat straw for thatching; and this bruises the reed, and renders it less durable than when it was prepared by hand. And now they never sow wheat early enough for the straw to gather strength. The result is that the thatch decays, and landlords and farmers both get tired of patching it, and put up slate or iron instead, thereby helping to destroy the market for one of their own products. I have known a field of wheat pay rent and rates and every outlay with the straw for thatching, and the grain was all clear profit.
Nobody who has lived under a thatched roof would willingly live under any other—the comfort is so great. The thatch keeps out the cold in winter, and keeps out the heat in summer. This house has about 4000 square feet of roof, and my other buildings in Wreyland have about 12,000 altogether; and the whole of this is thatched. Thatching costs about three pence a square foot, and lasts about five-and-twenty years; the period varying a little with the shape of the roof and its aspect, exposure, and so on. And really it is not inflammable. Just as paper will burn and books will not, so also straw will burn and thatch will not: at least, thatch will only burn quite slowly like a book. I have twice seen a fire stopped by cutting away a strip of thatch, and so making a gap that the fire could not cross; and the fire burnt so very slowly that there was ample time for this.
In insurance against fire a higher rate is charged on thatch than on the other kinds of roofing; and I presume the higher rate is needed, though possibly for other reasons than the nature of the roof. Writing to my father about a small estate that was for sale, my grandfather remarks quite placidly, 13 June 1864:—“The premises are all but new, for ***** took care to burn down the whole at different times—so all new and well built and slated. No office would continue the insurance for him, but being all slated it did not much require it.” I have heard the same thing said of other small estates.
There were many fires in Moreton about seventy or eighty years ago. In those times the insurance companies had fire-engines of their own, and people trusted to these engines. After a fire there, 11 September 1838, my father writes in his diary:—“The Moreton engine poured on the thatch in front of Mrs Heyward’s house, and kept the fire in the back premises. But, as the fire was extending towards the White Hart, which was insured in the ‘West of England,’ the engine (which belonged to that office) was removed there to endeavour to preserve the inn. As soon as the engine was removed, the fire came into the front of Mrs Heyward’s house, and extended on in Pound Street.... There ought to be two engines in the place; and, as the ‘Sun’ lost so much, perhaps they will send one there.” After another fire there, 12 September 1845, my grandfather writes to him:—“Many houses not insured: their owners dropt it at Ladyday last, when the advance took place on thatched houses.” This fire was a notable event. My father writes in his diary, Coblence, 21 September 1845:—“Read in the Galignani newspaper an account of the recent fire at Moreton, which has destroyed so much of the town.”
Cob walls are as good as a thatched roof for resisting heat and cold; and the houses that have both, are far the best to live in, when the temperature out-doors is either high or low. The cob is made of clay and gravel kneaded together with straw, and is put up in a mass, like concrete. It is very durable, if kept dry, but soon goes to pieces, if the wet gets into it, especially from above. The roof must therefore be kept quite watertight, and the outside of the walls may be protected by a coat of plaster or cement with rough-cast.
Good bricks are made on Bovey Heathfield at the other end of this parish. And nine inches of brickwork, laid in cement, is as strong as eighteen inches of cob, and looks the same, if covered with cement and rough-cast. But the eighteen inches of cob keeps a house much warmer than eighteen of brick.
In rough-casting the wall receives two coats of plaster or cement; and, before the second coat is dry, a mixture of fine gravel and hot lime is thrown hard at it with a trowel, and sticks on to the second coat. It was the custom here to rough-cast the south and west sides of a building, but not the north and east, as these are less exposed to wet.
Down here the building-stone is either granite or elvan; and rough-cast is desirable, as both sorts take damp, especially the granite. Moreover, if the walls are built of unsquared stone, the rain will sometimes find its way between the joints and down into the wall, wherever the bedding of the stones slopes downwards from the outside.
Some of the older buildings have squared stones from three to five feet long and two or three feet high. But generally these do not go beyond the first few courses, and then comes unsquared stone, and very often cob on top. In most of the old buildings here the walls are constructed with an inner and an outer face of unsquared stone and a core of mortar or cement. If the core decays, the stones get loose; and, if a stone falls out, others may