Under the Thatch

Under the Thatch
Learn more about us and what we believe in

Click here to see a 1 minute video about what makes our holiday accommodation so special!

Read about what the Ecologist had to say about us.

The Sunday Times place us No. 15 in the Top 50 Fabulous places to stay in the world!

The Observer call us a 'Gorgeous collection of place to stay in Wales'.

We aim to provide exceptional self-catering holiday experiences in every sector of the holiday market - from top-end luxury to tiny rustic cottages and cabins. We're particularly well known for providing historic and unique properties that are managed in an ethically responsible and sustainable way. If you want to know more about our environmental policies and how we work to be sustainable then click here.

We're delighted that our work has been recognised - particularly when we were presented the 2007 Ethical Travel award in the prestigious Guardian/Observer awards (and named again in their 2008 awards). We were also presented with an award in the Wales Sustainability Awards and also won the Best Tourism Business in Ceredigion and the Best Environmental Business in Ceredigion for 2007 (Ceredigion Business Awards).

Being green and ethical is something we strive to be - and there is always room for improvement, so let us know if you can think of ways that we can reduce the environmental and social impact of our work. Read about us in this article on Ethical Travel from the Scotsman - we were delighted to be described by Rhiannon Batten (author of Higher Ground: How to Travel Responsibly without Roughing It) as one of the UK's 'most responsibly minded operators'.

A bit of company history...

Under the Thatch was established in 2001 to find a viable end-use for a cottage that we rescued from collapse - Ffynnon Oer Isaf. We didn't want to sell it as we made the mistake of doing that with our first renovation project, which we were horrified to find had been cruelly modernised just months after it left our hands. We decided to let it for holidays, and use the income to fund new restoration works. We were motivated by the appallingly low occupancy rates of most self-catering properties, and the high prices that they charged. We knew that we could offer a better product at a lower price, and also ensure occupancy all year round. This means that the buildings that we return to the community have an economic benefit to their area all year round. We went on to rescue further derelict thatched and traditional cottages (see links on the left).

Expanding into Unique & Unusual Accommodation...

By 2005 the boom in the West Wales housing market, and a general shortage of traditional cottages surviving in original form meant that we started to look at other projects to diversify the business. We renovated a traditional Romany caravan and purchased a Scandinavian style holiday cabin which we restored with a period 1970s interior. Since then we have taken on a converted railway carriage, further cabins, a 1940s Showman's Waggon and a second gypsy caravan. To become a building that we would consider a structure must be architecturally significant, unusual, or interesting, and a great place to spend a holiday.

We also let other people's properties if they meet our house style and are managed in a way that we like. For the most part these are places owned by friends, or ones where we've acted as consultants on the renovation and restoration, but our eyes are always open if you think you've got something exceptional to show us.

Under the Thatch owns 9 of the units in our portfolio, and the rest are owned by other individuals. Most of the cottages that we don't own that we advertise are places that we have managed or acted as consultants for the renovation and conservation, and these 'agency' lets must meet our criteria for having great buildings in great locations that have been sensitively restored and are sustainably managed. All the profit that Under the Thatch makes from holidays booked in these, like the other properties, goes into our renovation and restoration work.

Please email us if you know of a project that may interest us, or if you are interested in us managing the marketing of your own property if it fits the bill.

Who are We?

The company is managed by Dr Greg Stevenson, Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Wales, Lampeter. Greg works as a freelance architectural heritage consultant, publishing and working on television projects such as BBC Restoration (as Series Consultant) and co-presenting S4C's 'Y Ty Cymreig' (The Welsh House). You can find out more about the series here. You can find out more about Greg's books on Amazon here.

A team of staff keep Under the Thatch working for you, to provide year-round holiday breaks in amazing places at reasonable prices. We believe that buildings like ours can work for themselves, raising money to rescue traditional buildings at risk in Wales. We consider ourselves as a social enterprise, as our aim isn't profit, but to find viable economic solutions for historic buildings at risk.

What makes Under the Thatch so special?

Profits are used to maintain historic buildings which have higher than average maintenance costs due to the use of specialist conservation building products. For example, our wheatstraw roofs are historically authentic, but have a shorter life than the cheaper modern alternative of imported water-reed. Ours are the only cottages (outside of a museum) in Wales that are thatched correctly in wheatstraw.
Profits are also used to rescue new buildings - purchase and renovation.
Our prices are what we consider fair and reasonable. We aren't cheap, but we are regularly half the price of the competition. There is no need to be greedy in this business, and we believe that over-priced holidays is one of the reasons that so much self-catering accommodation stands empty for half the year. Even our highest priced cottage is under the industry standard for a property of its type, and we think is without peer in the UK in terms of quality.
We price our accommodation according to the number of people staying - so if you are a small group you don't pay over the odds to stay in a larger cottage.
Profits also fund a small local education programme about the vernacular built heritage of West Wales, with lectures and slide shows, as well as occasional guided tours for various local community groups from school-children to the Women's Institute.
We aim to rent our accommodation all year round, every night of the year. If the cottages are not booked out of season we reduce the price to encourage a booking. We strongly believe that these buildings should continue to work for their communities, even in low season. We would rather let a cottage with no profit being made than have it stand empty. Sadly this is not the policy of most accommodation providers in West Wales, with average occupancy levels around 35-45%. Guests regularly get holidays under £99, and the lucky few get last-minute deals as low as £39.
We employ local people to maintain our properties, and do not use any outside agencies.
We source local tradesmen and women in the restoration of our properties, and prefer to use freelancers who then take their newly-gained conservation skills with them to other jobs.
We believe in repairing buildings rather than reconstructing them, wherever possible.
We will never take a home out of the community and convert it to holiday use. Instead we bring derelict or unused buildings and renovate them so that they are of economic benefit to their local community.
We use traditional crafts and materials in our building conservation. This means we use lime instead of cement, limewash instead of acrylic emulsions, local hedgerow timber is used for roof repairs, and gorse cut from the local fields.
We endeavour to use environmentally friendly materials in our building work, such as sheepswool insulation rather than fibreglass, limecrete rather than concrete, linseed-oil based paints etc.
We aim to run the business in a way that minimises its environmental impact. All central heating systems are modern highly efficient boilers - some are wood-pellet and thus virtually carbon neutral. We have reed-bed sewage systems at the cabins, solar panels at some properties for heating water, and at some properties we purchase electric on a green tarif. We are currently investigating wind power for our latest project at Llwyndryssi. Click here to read our full environmental policy. We have been awarded Green Dragon Level II environmental award for our work.

CONSULTANCY SERVICES

Freelance journalism: Readers in Wales will know Under the Thatch from regular articles following the rescue of Troedrhiwfallen in the Western Mail newspaper. The series led to a regular column on rural crafts and building conservation. Other articles have been published in The Times, Period House magazine in the UK and building magazines in Australia.

Project management: On vernacular building conservation projects in West Wales. Current projects include a wonderful eighteenth century farm complex in North Pembrokeshire for Griff Rhys Jones as shown on BBC Wales as the series 'A Pembrokeshire Farm'.

Dr Greg Stevenson

Honorary Research Fellow in Vernacular Architecture at the University of Wales, Lampeter.

Assessor on building conservation courses at Ty Mawr, the Welsh Centre for Traditional & Ecological Building.

Presenting, consultancy and research work for UK television and other media, including co-presenting Y TyCymreig ('The Welsh House') a series on the history of Welsh homes. Series Consultant for BBC Restoration, and also a second project with Griff Rhys Jones, 'A Pembrokeshire Farm' (BBC 4).

Author of various architecture & design titles. We provided the foreword to the recently re-published 'The Welsh House' by Iorwerth C. Peate. Greg is co-author of the first coffee table book on Welsh interiors (Welsh Homes) as well as books on prefabs, 1930s homes, Art Deco ceramics etc. We plan to publish our latest book 'The Traditional Buildings of West Wales' lin 2008.