QUAINT ROOFS

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 35, 10 August 1936, Page 15

QUAINT ROOFS

"NEW-OLD" FASHION

Returning to Melbourne after an eight months' holiday in England, the Continent, and the United States, Mrs. Harvey Miller passed through Auckland on Friday, says the "New Zealand Herald." As it is over 12 years since Mrs. Miller last visited England, she had noticed many changes in all directions,'the greatest, however, having taken place in the English countryside.

"The country in England is very; much more 'country' than that of any! other, place, but the towns and cities are rapidly encroaching upon it," said Mrs.. Miller. What were once small villages had' grown into towns, and houses were rapidly springing up in the broad stretches of country that still remained. In many of the outlying districts efforts were being made to restrict building so as to preserve the beauty of the countryside. (

Mrs. Miller was impressed by the many picturesque country homes in England,, and had noticed that thatching, which had been regarded as an' almost lost craft, had revived considerably. There were now two schools of thatching in England, one in Warwickshire and one in Northamptonshire. ...■'• . "There were three methods of thatching," said Mrs. Miller, "which were known as Norfolk reed, heather thatch, and straw thatch." The straw thatching method was the most common and, in her opinion, the most picturesque! Many of the new country homes featured this'old and beautiful method of roofing, while in a number of small villages in Sussex, Yorkshire, and Warwickshire there were some perfectlypreserved examples of old Tudor buildings with thatched roofs.

In Northamptonshire, in the small village of Isham, near Kettering, Mrs. Miller had visited what she thought was probably the oldest house in the village. Its stone walls had been standing for over 500 years, although the thatched roof had been renewed periodically and new windows added. Some of the most picturesque examples oC old buildings were to be found in the old tithe barns which featured high thatched roofs of straw, conical loft windows, and quaintly-patterned walls.