24 CONTEXT 189 : SEPTEMBER 2026 JENNY CHESHER Thatching straw production Making sufficient straw available for thatched roofs depends on expanding the number of growers in the sector, and making the businesses of existing producers more sustainable. A reaper-binder harvesting thatching straw at Burrowbridge, Somerset Owners of thatched buildings face many challenges, but a growing issue for them in the last five years has been the availability of straw to thatch their roofs. The use of wheat straw for thatching is relatively rare outside the UK. Straw production for thatch in this country therefore remains an entirely home-based industry, unlike the production of water reed for thatch, where 97 per cent of material is imported. Prior to the mid-20th century, straw was the predominant thatching material across most of England, being ubiquitous as a cheap and plentiful by-product of the grain harvest, and available on almost every farm. The skills to apply it were equally widely available in rural England and economical to employ. However, following the advent of the combine harvester after the second world war, shorterstemmed wheat varieties were developed as expanding the production of grain took priority. This led to a divergence in farming between the cultivation of wheat for grain and its cultivation for long-stemmed thatching straw. Ultimately that divergence has caused thatch to become the specialist product it is today, somewhat at the margins of mainstream agriculture. This process of marginalisation has been exacerbated by legal restrictions imposed on the sale of seed for wheat varieties not in wide commercial usage, meaning that many growers rely on farm-saved seed and discouraging new growers from entering the market. Over the second half of the 20th century, numbers of thatching straw growers have declined as the challenges of straw production have increased. That decline has been mirrored by an expansion in the availability of competitively priced imported water reed, which started to
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