The following is reproduced with permission from the Scottish Coppice Network Facebook group.
Hi all. Back in September I posted saying I’d like to build a scandinavian style pole fence on my croft. Well it’s finished now and I thought some might be interested to hear how it went.
I really enjoyed the process, especially working with only natural materials. Heating and weaving the withes was pretty satisfying as were days spent in the forest cutting poles. For a short distance I used sitka spruce poles but I managed to get permission to cut slow grown scots pine for the majority of it. Thank you Andy at Durack Croft for that! I found that I could do about 16ft of fence on a good day. That’s not too bad for traditional fencing and dyking. I also built a stone foundation to make the diagonals last longer so it’d be quicker without that. I used quite a bit of firewood. All the time you’re building you have a fire going not just for heating withes but for scorching the ends of the uprights. It’ll be interesting to see how long it lasts. I’ll be planting a native hedge alongside it soon so hopefully it’ll last until that’s stockproof.
I have a croft page full of other traditional skills and projects on Instagram. @acheilidh_heritage_croft
Here’s some snaps:
