CASAS DE SANTANA

Thatched with Santana's own wheat and rye.

The thatched triangular houses of Santana, on Madeira's north coast: the two in the garden beside the town hall, white fronts with red bands and blue frames under roofs of local wheat and rye straw. Walk the path between them, then step into the crafts house.

Santana, Madeira

Wood, straw and a steep roof

The houses are built of wood, which was cheap and plentiful here, and roofed with the straw of the wheat and rye the farmers grew. The roof is steep, about sixty degrees, so the rain runs off before it can soak in. Under it, an attic kept the produce and the seed; the ground floor was split into a kitchen and a bedroom. They were the homes of farmers. Today the municipality sows wheat and rye on its own land so there is straw to keep them thatched, and every four or five years part of each roof is renewed by hand.

From VisitMadeira and the Câmara Municipal de Santana.

How a casa is built

The frame

Wood, cheap and plentiful here, makes the frame. The roof is steep, about sixty degrees, so the rain runs off before it can soak in, and wood and straw keep the inside temperate in summer and winter. The municipality gives a reference size of 4.64 by 7 metres, 4.4 metres high.

The straw

The thatch is the straw of wheat and rye grown here. The municipality sows both on public land and cuts them by hand so the stems stay whole. Every four or five years part of each roof is renewed; the inner layer lasts, and a roof is rarely stripped whole.

The loft

Under the ridge, an attic kept the produce and the seed; the ground floor was a kitchen and a bedroom, divided by a partition. These two are the meio-fio kind: the thatch stops about sixty centimetres off the ground, on a low wall, which gives more room inside.

From VisitMadeira and the Câmara Municipal de Santana.

Made here, sold here

In the Núcleo craftspeople make, show and sell their work: models of these houses, embroidery, the traditional caps and other things for the home.

Visit the Casas de Santana

Núcleo de Casas Típicas, Rua do Sacristão, beside the town hall, 9230-116 Santana, Madeira

We found no published opening hours; check locally before you go.

VisitMadeira The Núcleo About the houses Câmara de Santana Directions

Sources and credits

Modelled by Madeira1 from photographs of the Núcleo. The houses' places, the paths and the streets from OpenStreetMap; their size and the roof's pitch from the Câmara Municipal de Santana.

The fronts, the thatch, the colours, the cobbles and the fenced beds follow the photographs. The inside of the crafts house (its counter, shelves, loft and ladder), the other plants, the birds, the trees, the neighbouring houses and every unmeasured dimension are an interpretive reconstruction, lit as on an October afternoon.

Reference photographs on Wikimedia Commons by Anne and David (public domain), Alberto-g-rovi (CC BY 3.0), Axel-E-Rator (CC BY 2.0), Pedro from Maia (CC BY 2.0), Holger Uwe Schmitt (CC BY-SA 4.0), Spielvogel (CC BY-SA 4.0), Lacobrigo (CC BY-SA 3.0); used for reference only, not shown.

Facts from VisitMadeira and the Câmara Municipal de Santana. The municipality did not commission this portrait.

Terrain: Copernicus DEM GLO-30 © DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus Defence and Space GmbH 2014–2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA.

Sound: synthesised in your browser — the wind, birds, a distant bell.