As featured on the BBC's MASTERCRAFT

Rumpelstiltskin Thatching Company (Matt & Dave) featured on the BBC's Mastercraft, presented by Monty Don.

Friday 12th February 2010 on BBC2 at 9.00pm   www.bbc.co.uk/tv

Composting Toilet

Wild Chicken is a website that contains gardening info, planting plans & care, and wildlife gardening. They wanted to build a composting toilet for their allotment kitchen garden.

WE wanted not only wanted to try an experiment with a straw bale building, but also needed facilities for a workshop. Before we knew it, we had a plan to build a composting toilet with straw bale walls and a thatched roof, and so...

www.wildchicken.com/learning/lp_ctp_00001.htm

Tom's Apprenticeship

Back in 2005 I was just starting my second year of sixth form when it occurred to me that I wasn’t really interested in the subjects I was studying or the job prospects it offered. In fact sixth form just seemed to be a next logical step to take after my GCSE’s. After thinking about what I wanted to do I decided I wanted to work outside ...
Click to read on

PLEASE NOTE. We are NOT currently recruiting

Alan Titchmarsh Show

Rumpelstiltskin Thatching Company featured on the Alan Titchmarsh Show.

Wednesday 21st January 2009, 3pm ITV1

www.itv.com

Husbandy and Processing of Thatching Materials, with Pierre Rizzo

Pierre is not training to be a thatcher, but is learning about the husbandry and processing of thatching materials. For the first year, that meant many hours working from our barns pulling long straw yealms from beds of heaped, wetted straw. This is repetitive work, but it is essential that this process is mastered for the roof to work properly and look good. Click to read more...

A thatcher's job doesn't have to be the short straw

Jon Henley
The Guardian,
Thursday September 6 2007

Tom Cummins is probably not your idea of a thatcher. Gnarled, weathered and straw-sucking he's not; more young, blond and surfboard-toting. Eighteen months ago, the sixth form at Chipping Norton was boring the pants off Cummins, 19. Now he's halfway through a four-year apprenticeship in an ancient trade that has spent most of the past century in apparently irreversible decline. "It's a good conversation-starter," he says. "Hasn't brought me much luck with the girls, though." Click to read more...

Hatching a new style of thatching

By Victoria Bone
BBC News
Thatched cottages were a feature of ancient Britain. But like so many traditional crafts, thatching has failed to attract willing young apprentices. So what made one 19-year-old quit sixth form to train as a thatcher? Click to read more...