The obsession to build a natural structure out of local materials from the Mornington Peninsula has been with us since we first travelled in Third World countries in the 1960’s.
We live in the wonderful historic building of Heronswood which is constructed of stone quarried for the house in 1871 from the mountain at Arthur’s Seat, and eucalyptus wood split for the diagonal slabs and shingles for the cottage in 1864. However, after admiring the beautifully sculptured thatched roofs in England, and more recently, Africa, we decided it was time we built our own, using indigenous materials, at Dromana.
We discovered the perfect reed for roof thatching in the Tootgarook Wetlands near Rosebud, just ten minutes from Heronswood. Phragmites is a reed that grows in waterways all around the world. It is widely grown and used for thatching in England (particularly Norfolk), Holland and Northern Germany. The species that we used, Phragmites australis, is a southern hemisphere strain.
We decided that the external walls of the building would be made of rammed earth. This involved examining the tailings at the local quarry to see that they had the right gravel consistency and colour. The material came from the earth of Arthur’s Seat, only a couple of kilometres from Heronswood so the colour matched our area (particularly the driveway) very well. Ten minutes away from us at the top of Arthur’s Seat near Red Hill, the earth is an entirely different colour (red) and consistency (clay).
Soon, a huge mound of earth blocked our top driveway until the formwork had been put in place and all the earth had been mixed with approximately eight per cent concrete for strength, hosed, and then rammed into place. We employed Earth Structures to build our rammed earth walls and our son Jol worked with two other `rammers’ to complete the walls in three weeks. They were closely followed by a team of Dutch builders, headed by Fred Sanders, who came in to erect the internal walls of tongue and groove panels.
Our next challenge was to find a thatcher to roof the building that we had planned to include offices, a seed storage area or seed bank and a public café. This was no easy task and we found that most of the old thatchers in Australia had passed on. We eventually tracked down a German master thatcher in New Zealand through a heritage fruit growing contact in that country.
It was wonderful to watch the thatchers at work as they were so fast and skilled. Thatching is a trade that is dying at a rapid rate – Norbert estimated that there were only approximately 150 master thatchers left in Northern Germany. They would bang the bundles hard down on the even ground and then cut the ends evenly to a length of about 1.5 metres with a huge cast iron guillotine or cutter. One would stand up on the roof while the other would hurl the bundles up, and there they would cut the twine and carefully spread out the bundles along the battens. They then sewed the reeds on to the batons firmly with wire threaded through a huge iron needle (which looked like a poker).
When the reeds were in place, a large, wooden, flat bat with holes in it called a leggatt was used to pat the reeds into place so that they sat on a sloping angle to the roof. The thatch needs to be at an angle of 50 degrees or more with a 600mm overhang above the walls, as there are no gutters. As they moved up the roof, the thatchers used a specially adapted small ladder with two metal scythes at the top to hook into the thatch.
This was where the art of thatching lay; in the way that they shaped the reeds around the roof and around the windows so that the roof became a beautiful, sculptured work of art. The result was way beyond our expectations and it is great to watch people gasp when they see the roof for the first time. Apart from being a beautiful and natural art, thatching is also a silent one: only the pat, pat, pat of the leggatt is heard – such a contrast to the thumping of the pneumatic rammers and the screeching of the electric saws.
Because the thatch is 250mm thick and densely packed it does not allow rain to penetrate through and this natural insulation keeps the building cool in hot weather (in fact, 23°C on our first 40°C day), and warm in cool weather. The seed store, at one end, has natural earth walls and no windows so it keeps the seeds at a constant temperature all year.
We have found the whole project has been deeply satisfying and hope it will encourage others to perpetuate the dying art of thatching.
The “Thatched Earth Cafe” is now called “Fork to Fork at Heronswood” and is open 7 days from 10 am to 4 pm and provides an added attraction for visitors to the garden of Heronswood, which is 70 minutes from Melbourne (Melway map 159 C9).