Note 11 — Chapter VII · COTTAGES AND HOMESTEADS

See “In Wormley Wood” (Plate 46), in the description of which I have referred to the reasons for the disappearance of thatch as a roof material. An additional one to those there mentioned is without doubt the risk of fire. Since the introduction of coal, chimneys clog much more readily with soot, and a fire from one of these with its showers of sparks may quickly set ablaze not only the cottage where this happens, but the whole village. That the insurance companies, by their higher premiums for thatch-covered houses, recognise a greater risk, may or may not be proof of greater liability to conflagration, but we certainly nowadays hear of much fewer of those disasters, which even persons now living can remember, whereby whole villages were swept out of existence.