Country diary: This thatched roof must weather time and storms

South Uist, Outer Hebrides: We lay the new water reed over an old layer of marram grass - a technique known as 'overcoating'It was the house that stayed dry. In 2005, a storm and tidal surge devastated the coast of South Uist, damaging homes and taking five lives. But this low building, less than five metres above sea level, somehow escaped the flood.Cuir na Bhoir is a thatched blackhouse built on a delicate spit of land on the west coast of South Uist, now a holiday cottage. I have travelled here from Devon to help local thatcher Neil Nicholson re-thatch it. We are using water reed from Tayside - not Hebridean, but more local than most thatching reed used in the UK, over 80% of which is imported from as far away as China. Continue reading...