There are roughly 60,000 thatched properties in Britain, of which 75pc are listed buildings, according to Savills the estate agent. Thatched roofs are generally more prone to storm and weather damage.

I arrived in Miyama in the dead of winter and under the cover of darkness. As I entered my accommodation for the night, a 160-year-old thatched-roof house, I was struck by its warm appearance.

That's because her white-walled cottage in Lisburn close to the M1 has a thatched roof. In the 1950s there were about 40,000 thatched buildings in Northern Ireland, but today there are fewer than ...

A restaurant in one of Weston-super-Mare's oldest buildings could get a new thatched roof. The Old Thatched Cottage, in Knightstone Road, dates back to the late eighteenth century and is the town ...