This summer, Everards, the well-known Leicestershire brewers and pub-owners, are sprucing up both Barrow’s Soar Bridge Inn and Sileby’s Free Trade Inn. At the Soar Bridge all the old rendering was removed, new rendering applied, the exterior freshly painted and new signs and lighting added. Much smarter appearance achieved – job done.

For the Free Trade Inn, it’s been a much more complicated business. The thatched roof on this Grade ll late medieval building, built about 500 years ago, had become dark, mossy and generally scruffy so needed replacing. Everards must have deep pockets as the job is a very expensive one and they’ll have to do it all again in another 40 or 50 years! What’s more, I was told that Everards have a total of 26 thatched pubs to look after. If a pub is owned by a brewery the brewery is always responsible for the condition of the exterior of the pub.

As I visit Sileby once a week I saw the transformation of the roof of the Free Trade Inn from being a dirty old thatch to a beautiful new one that glowed in the sunshine. Being of a curious disposition I asked members of the thatching team, Paul Wareing and Liam George, how they went about the work and they kindly took the time to tell me. I found it fascinating. It seems a thatch is a living, breathing ecosystem which, as it ages and becomes more porous, can provide a home for bees and wasps and all sorts of other little living things but less so when new.

But how do you start? Well, first of all you have to choose what kind of straw or reed you are going to use. The Free Trade Inn has been thatched with water reeds as they last the longest, but the ridge at the top is different. That is always made of straw, a hybrid of wheat and rye grown especially for thatching. Unlike the reeds, the ridge is always covered in chicken wire to stop birds from pulling it apart for nesting material or just for fun! The reed thatch is much denser so doesn’t need the wire topping. Amazingly the thatch on the Free Trade Inn is 14 inches thick.

But before the reeds go on there’s a lot of work to be done. The rafters have to be checked and replaced if weak, although there weren’t any in poor condition at the Free Trade Inn. Then a fire-resistant membrane is laid across the rafters to prevent a thatch fire destroying the rooms beneath. New battens are laid on top of the membrane so that long screws can be drilled into them to hold the reeds in place. Once this is done the reeds are laid in rows, or courses, starting from the bottom and working upwards towards the ridge. These bundles are fixed half-way up although from the exterior you can never see any of the screws holding them in place. It all looks smooth and glorious.

This building has always been thatched but not always been a pub. The property as we see it today was, in medieval times, only the right-hand side of the present structure. It had four windows, two on either side with a door in the middle. The extension to the north, with one window, was added later. It was originally a small farm, or cottage, surrounded by fields. In the early 19th century, the owners began to sell beer but weren’t allowed to sell anything else. It was only in the 20th century that the then owner obtained a wine and spirits licence and it became the kind of pub you would recognise today.

Gaynor Barton