In May 2006, Rod Miller celebrated his 40th year of thatching in Dorset.

Having completed his apprenticeship with a thatching contractor in Wiltshire, in 1966 Rod accepted the post for resident Thatcher on the Weld Estate in Lulworth, Dorset. With approximately 900 thatchers in the country and 63% at retirement age, it wasn't long before Rod was approached to price work for private thatched house owners maintaing thatch roofs in other parts of the country. This was a period of change, and it became difficult to obtain suitable straw for thatching; the older methods of farming rapidly changing and the introduction of the combine harvester.

In the early 1970's Rod employed two trainee thatchers, (one, his brother) and following their successful two year apprenticeship, employed another two men. Rod also invested in a binder and cut between 20 and 30 acres of wheat straw to be made into wheat reed a year at two local farms as well as purchasing water reed cut from Radipole Lake and Lodmore, Weymouth and approximately 30 acres of water reed from the Rempstone Estate, Wareham. However obtaining satisfactory material continued to present a problem and during the 1980's the Rempstone Estate sold the reed beds to the Nature Conservancy Council, who retained the beds for alternative use.

The water reed beds at Radipole were taken over by the RSPB and Lodmore was used as infill (and subsequently built on). As many of the reed beds in Norfolk also dwindled, so did the quality of reed being produced from there. Therefore, it became necessary to look for alternative sources of reed and today our reed is imported from abroad; Turkey, Romania, Hungary and Poland. Rod believes that without importing these foreign materials, the thatching craft would not survive with the loss of many historic thatch roofs. Click here for more information about the The Listed Building Debate...