On The Roof

A Thatcher's Journey

Tom Allan

$24.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

Profile Books Ltd
02 September 2025

Rural crafts; The natural world, country life & pets

The reed goes on, the reed comes off. The reed rots and returns to the earth. The houses we work on outlast us. The thatch we use has never stood still.

On The Roof is a thatcher's tale - a journey of discovery, and a reflection on what it means for a person or a building to belong in a place. It tells Tom Allan's story, leaving an office job in the city to find fulfilment among the Devon roofs, as well as the stories of six other people who share his trade. We meet the Hebridean son of a lobster fisherman who thatches with a dune-growing grass, a Syrian refugee who found peace among the seagrass roofs of a Danish island, and one of the first women to become master of Japan's 5,000-year-old craft of thatching.

Thatching is an ancient, living tradition. To be a thatcher is to belong to a craft almost endless in its reach - at once one of the oldest ways of giving shelter, a way of working close to the land, and a deep immersion in the rhythms of a place on the most local scale possible: a village, a valley, an island.

But the craft isn't frozen in time. Thatched roofs exist in a constant state of repair, renewal and alteration, and the trade is poised at a moment of profound change both in the way people thatch, and the plants they use to thatch with. As Allan reveals, the story of thatching is the story of our relationship with the land, and how we have chosen to treat it.

By: Tom Allan
Imprint: Profile Books Ltd
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Main
Dimensions: Height: 196mm, Width: 128mm, Spine: 24mm
Weight: 260g
ISBN: 9781788167444
ISBN 10: 1788167449
Pages: 304
Publication Date: 02 September 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Tom Allan has worked as a thatcher in South Devon since 2012. Before this he planted hedges in the Scottish Borders and worked for a London publishing house. He writes about the natural world for the Guardian's Country Diary column, and has written on travel and the environment for the Financial Times, Guardian, the Earth Island Journal, British Wildlife Magazine, and others.

Reviews for On The Roof: A Thatcher's Journey

'To be a thatcher is to have a trade that most can name, few understand, and many believe to be extinct. We appear before you with our Mediaeval hand tools, our spars and liggers and eaves-wads, as if we belong not to the present but to some dimly-defined point in the past. To thatch is to be immersed in the vernacular traditions on the most local possible scale - a village, a valley, an island - and also to belong to a craft that is almost endless in its reach.' - On The Roof: A Thatcher's Journey