SHIRAKAWA, Gifu Prefecture--Villagers in this renowned UNESCO World Heritage site came together to re-thatch the roof of a multitiered house here for the first time in five years on May 13. The ...

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Kazumi Numaguchi takes a handful of grass and draws the bright steel of his sickle through the stems. Holding ...

In England and Denmark, there are still entire villages of thatched houses. While it is expensive to thatch a roof in those countries, it is not prohibitively so, and the tradition of thatching is ...

Lawn care is important for any homeowner. And most people don’t realize that it’s beneficial to thatch their lawn to keep their grass fresh. However, a thatching rake is different from other types of ...

Simply sign up to the Life & Arts myFT Digest -- delivered directly to your inbox. Old England was, to innumerable designers of old toffee tins, a land of thatched houses. They had a point — the ...

A new course on thatching is in full swing at Gáirdín an Ghorta, Newmarket, Co Kilkenny. Run by the Heritage Council in partnership with Kilkenny and Carlow Education and Training Board (KCETB), this ...

In comparison to the early 20th century, when tens of thousands of thatched homes dotted the Irish countryside, the republic of Ireland is home now to approximately 1,800 thatched roofs. Thatched ...

There has been a call for more thatching courses around Ireland in order to save the "uniquely Irish craft". Fine Gael Senator Manus Boyle said that thatching is at risk of dying unless investment ...