Shropshire Magazine

Paul Draycott, master thatcher, admits he won’t compromise his standards and is sometimes better working alone

Shrewsbury’s Paul Draycott is one of just two master thatchers in the county – and he is taking his skills to lofty heights

It was pure gold, matching the harvest fields: an idyllic moment driving over the Shropshire border into Flintshire on a sunny September afternoon and into the village of Penley. And it was easy to find my man. He was tanned an autumn gold, caught in the sunshine’s golden rays and stretched way above my head, along an expanse of golden water reed from Austria. Paul, the master thatcher.

Shrewsbury’s Paul Draycott is one of only two such master craftsmen in Shropshire and because of that is in great demand not only in the county, but all over the country.

At the moment, Paul is working on this wonderful junior-school building – the only thatched one he knows of and certainly one at which anybody would love to be a pupil. Imagine taking your little ones to a beautifully thatched school in a pretty little village flanked by rolling countryside. A head start, I’d say.

And now, Paul is making its roof safe, sound and beautiful for the next half-century.

Patterns

“I do my own patterns, but on this job they wanted it just as it would have been 100 years ago and that was really plain. But they also wanted long straw which only lasts about 10 years, so I did suggest I use the Austrian water reed instead which will last for 50 years,” he says.

The reed is imported to him in big bales which he can heave into his trailer with his forklift truck. He’s got all the gear, but then, he learned all the tricks as well as the skills of the trade as a lad and in a very interesting way. Because Paul’s career in thatching began when he was about 12, pushing his schooling very much into second place.

He grins: “It was my uncle’s business. I started helping him and hardly ever went to school, it was what I wanted to do – and more than that, he paid me £20 a week!”

Needless to say, young Paul ended his formal education as soon as he could and worked for his uncle’s Cosy Thatch thatching business. He left after about five years “because my uncle was thinking of retiring but there was no other job for me – it was all I knew. So I decided to start my own business in my own name which I’ve been doing now for about 14 years,” says a very contented Paul.

And not surprisingly, work comes his way all year round. While we might not always notice the number of thatched properties in Shropshire, Paul points out that there are plenty around. “Colemere and Kenley villages for instance have seven each, and Cockshutt has three. Most of the work I do is for homes but I’ve also done pubs, like The Pound at Leebotwood. It suits me round here being on my own. There is enough work but if it was Devon or the Cotswolds, I’d need to have people working with me all the time,” he says.

Paul regularly does work in many other parts of the country as well, though. “I was up near Blackpool last year working for a brewery and I also thatched a roof in Northern Ireland for a chap whose house was near the Maze Prison – I thatched his garage as well. He just saw me working when he was over here and asked me to do the job for him.”

Tradition

With a number of people he can call on if he needs an extra pair of hands, following what would seem to be a family tradition, Paul has also had his own young nephew doing some work experience with him. Is he likely to follow in this uncle’s footsteps? The master thatcher says: “I don’t know whether he will be that interested. I might like to have my son with me eventually though – but he’s only six!”

Like many a craftsman, he admits he won’t compromise his standards and is sometimes better working alone. Another wide grin arrives as Paul recalls: “Mind you I had one boy with me and he’d been here for a week before he told me he was scared of heights. Can you believe that? Being able to go up ladders seems to be the first thing you want to be able to do, doesn’t it.”

Thatching is a hugely skilled art: “You can more or less tell from the start if someone is going to be able to do it,” says Paul

I watched Paul at work before he came down for a chat and was fascinated at the thatcher’s sheer artistry. He says: “You have really got to have the knack in this job and what I’d call a good ‘eye level’. I suppose it’s what you call skill. You can more or less tell from the start if someone is going to be able to do it.”

Has Paul ever lived in a thatched property himself? He shakes his head: “No, I haven’t. But my uncle, the one who used to have the business, lives in a thatched house in Myddle.”

If thatching can be in the blood, it’s in Paul’s. And once the Penley school roof is made safe for the next 50 years, he’ll move back over the border into Shropshire to start work at the Hawkstone Follies, where he’ll be thatching the Gingerbread House and the Hermitage.

As he adjusts his hat and nips back up his ladder in the sunshine to where the Austrian water reed awaited him, the master thatcher shouts back down: “I love it!”.

I rather think we’ve gathered that!