Life of a Chalkstream: The Great Thatched Wall of Wallop

Greetings!

It is one of those oddities of British planning law that I live and work in a historic mill most of which is over 600 years old, with a mention in the Domesday Book for parts of it, that is not a listed building but my thatched garden wall, certainly of lesser vintage but still very old, is a listed building.

Now, though a thatched garden wall is a thing of beauty and comment it is not without its issues, not least in the transitory nature of the thatch. After 25 years at Nether Wallop Mill we are now rethatching for the third time but this time it is The Big One, for which read expensive.

Straw thatch on walls has a life expectancy of about ten years, the routine rethatching involving stripping off the top layer and adding new. You can do this time after time for over a century but every time the thatch cap gets bigger, just a little bit thicker and larger, until it reaches a tipping, or rather collapsing point. Sadly, for my wallet that once-in-a-century moment of collapse has come under my watch.

Final trimming work-in-progress

I suppose the obvious question to ask is why thatch a wall? Well, around these parts, a chalk valley, chalk was a readily available building material that could be dug at no cost. Building a chalk wall is pretty simple, albeit time consuming and labour intensive. First create a foundation of flints to just above ground level. Next layer a foot thick mix to a consistency of stiff dough of crushed chalk, straw and water. With shuttering to hold it in place then tramp down the mix wearing shoes with iron plates attached. Leave for a week to dry (walls are best built in summer) and then add further layers until the required height is reached. It will take another year for the wall to be considered ‘cured’ at which point it will be coated with a chalk slurry.

Once built the wall has to be kept bone dry, hence the thatch cap. Without it, the wall will melt like a linear ice cream. However, for all its beauty I do wonder why some previous owner of The Mill went to all the time and expense of building our wall. It was hardly like the road was busy. Three or four hundred years ago, the traffic was at most a few passing horse and carts or docile sheep. Maybe it was a status thing? Millers were high up the pecking order in feudal times, so maybe in the absence of a Bentley or Gucci handbag this was the way to announce your wealth. I have read that chalk walls, that retain heat and provide shelter from frost, were useful for growing soft fruit so, as ours is south facing, maybe that is another clue.

Regardless of all that history, in the present, village thatchers Simon and Geoff Gates have been working on the wall for the past three weeks, starting with the old thatch which literally rolled off and then fell into the road in a rotten heap when the chicken wire was peeled off. This is because there is no subframe or wall fixing; the thatch cap is held in place by way of the shape and weight. First, a triangular stack of straw rolls are put on the top of the wall. Next straw eaves are bent over that stack to then by thatched over, held in place by hazel pegs and the decorative, but practical, hazel weave pattern, with each thatcher having his particular ‘signature’ style for this final flourish.

It will be good to have it done, and though we still have a few days to go it looks, I am sure you will agree, amazing. However my neighbour, who still has his to do is looking on with a certain amount of trepidation …….

Simon Gates with the final trim and his signature weave. Before and after below.

Ticked off

I seem to be something of a tick magnet. Every summer when the grass is high, however robust my trousers, I will have the dubious pleasure of removing, often multiple, engorged ticks. Now, like most people I worry about catching Lyme Disease and often wonder why I do not, or at least have not so far, it being fairly frequent in the river community. It transpires the Lyme virus is not endemic in ticks; they have first to catch it themselves.

There are around 20 species of tick in Britain but the one that mostly concerns us is the Common Tick Ixodes Ricinus which also goes by multiple names such Sheep Tick, Deer Tick or Castor Bean Tick. As fly fishers we will instantly recognise the life cycle of the tick of egg, larva, nymph, and adult. It is the nymphal stage when they are attracted to humans as they attach themselves to tall grass awaiting a body to brush pass to allow themselves to cling on to a warm blooded host be it human, animal or bird, blood being essential if they are to mutate into adults and for the adult female to produce eggs.

The chance of catching Lyme Disease, though worrying, is small with about 2,000 people a year in Britain infected. Most British ticks do not carry infection (1 in 5 at worst), which they themselves get by feeding on an infected wildlife host, usually a rodent, ingesting the Lyme bacteria which is passed on at the next blood feed. However, even if you have the misfortune to be chosen as a host by a Lyme carrying tick all is not doom. It takes 36-48 hours for the transfer to take place, so if you remove the tick within 24 hours you will likely be fine.

Ticks are part of the spider family, their looks and confirmation being that of an arachnid albeit very small. I must admit I do not often spot them at that stage, my first sign usually being that of a burrowed head in my skin with the castor bean shaped, blood filled torso protruding. It is tempting Hollywood style, to burn them off with a cigarette end or coat them with Vaseline. Don’t! The shock will simply make them regurgitate their saliva back into your bloodstream. Use a pair of fine tweezers flat to the skin, a tick removal tool or fine thread to remove your parasite.

Video of the Week

If you thought Wild Summon was a bit off the wall, take a look at the trailer for Black Samphire from Sky, “an environmental folk horror, featuring the voice of Stephen Fry - fuses rural myth and the real-life threat of the climate crisis to shine a light on the UK's growing water pollution problem.”

From what I can gather (frankly I am bit confused) we have a one minute trailer that gives us a preview of costal foragers who are struck down after eating pollution tainted samphire, which sets off a “subtle, unsettling tale of insidious creeping horror” based in the pernicious water industry.

Currently there is a one minute trailer, with a thirteen minute short film to follow and full-length feature film in the works. Watch the trailer here ….. .

Quiz

The normal random collection of questions inspired by the date, events or topics in the Newsletter. It is just for fun with answers at the bottom of the page.

1) Easter is quite literally A Moveable Feast. Who wrote a book, published posthumously, of that name?

2) What is an aquaphile?

3) The earliest date on which Easter can fall is 22/March; the next occurrence will be 2285! What is the latest date on which Easter can fall?