Fence

Definition

Humphry Repton wrote in 1803 in reference to England that “every county has its peculiar mode of fencing, both in the construction of hedges and ditches, which belong rather to the farmer than the landscape gardener.” In America, where the tasks of partitioning, cultivating, and embellishing the landscape were considered inseparable, the distinction between farmer and gardener was less easily made. Frequent references to the fence in both the written and visual record place it among the most fundamental elements of the designed landscape in America. A fence, as dictionary definitions agree, enclosed areas such as gardens, cornfields, parks, woods, or groups of trees. As G. Gregory (1816) noted, the feature could be formed by a hedge, wall, ditch, or bank. Terms for different fence types abound in American landscape design vocabulary: blind, board, close, cradle, cross, double, foss, hurdle, invisible, live, open board, pale/paling, palisade, picket, post-and-plank, post-and-rail, snake, sunk, trellis, Virginia, wattle, wire, worm, and zigzag.

The choice of fence type was dictated by the materials available, local custom, and the need at hand. For instance, worm fences(also called zigzag, snake, split rail, or Virginia fences) did not require posts or post holes and therefore were easily moved to accommodate changing field use and avoided the problem of posts rotting in soil. They were also useful in areas where rocky soil made it difficult to dig post holes or in wooded areas where trees made straight fence lines impractical, as seen in the watercolor sketch by John Lewis Krimmel [Fig. 1]. Paled fences offered a more solid line of defense against deer and rabbits, but had less flexibility and required more labor and finished lumber [Fig. 2]. Such high fences were effective barriers for animals as well as humans, as attested by Robert Waln, Jr.’s 1825 description of the board fence at the Friends Asylum for the Insane in Pennsylvania.

Paling fences created visual barriers and were sometimes erected to screen unpleasant views or to provide privacy, particularly in urban settings [Fig. 3]. For instance, in 1857 John Fanning Watson complained that “in the usual selfish style of Philadelphia improved grounds” at William Bingham’s Philadelphia residence, “the whole was surrounded and hid from the public gaze by a high fence.” Fences were also used to direct the gaze, whether toward a house, as in Francis Guy’s chairback painting of Rose Hill in Baltimore [Fig. 4], or other focal point. In other cases, fences such as sunken types(later replaced by wire fences) were desired for their inconspicuous presence in the landscape. Numerous descriptions and horticultural advice columns praised the effect of unobstructed views created by enclosures that kept animals or human traffic at bay with minimal visibility (see Ha-Ha).

Fences were constructed from a variety of materials. In the Tidewater’s sedimentary soils where stone was scarce, wood was the most common material and was used mainly in paled, post-and-rail or board, and worm fences. Although types of wood that could be used were varied, a typical paling fence utilized different types of wood. For example, hard wood, such as locust, cedar, or oak, was often used for posts; wood with tensile strength, such as oak, poplar, or pine, was used for rails; and lightweight wood, such as pine, could be employed for the pales. Although worm fences [Fig. 5] have been documented in Delaware, New York, and as far north as Canada, they were so common in the Tidewater area that they were often identified as Virginia fences. Thomas Anburey even reported that New Englanders described a drunken man’s impaired movements as “making Virginia fences.” In southern New England’s glacier-formed topography, abundant fieldstone was used for stone walls, which sometimes were referred to as stone fences. Fences could also be created from live plants, predominantly thorn (hawthorn and buckthorn), although writers including Edward James Hooper (1842) and Charles Wyllys Elliott (1848) recommended osage orange, cedar, Chinese arbor vitae, privet, holly, honey and black locust, beech, willow, and hemlock. The advantages of live fences were a matter of great debate, particularly in early nineteenth-century publications that advocated the “new agriculture.” These writings included those by the New York and Massachusetts Agricultural Societies, and later, in periodical form, the Horticulturist. In addition to their durability and long-term cost savings, it was argued that live fences harmonized better with the surrounding landscape (see Hedge). A similar effect could also be achieved with other fences, as suggested by Edward Sayers (1838), by training “vines and creepers” to conceal old and unsightly fences.

Iron gates were used in the eighteenth century at such sites as Westover, on the James River, Va., and the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg, and iron fences were employed for the fronts of elite dwellings and notable institutions. It was not, however, until the second quarter of the nineteenth century when the expansion of America’s domestic iron industry and advances in cast iron made iron fences affordable for those of more modest means. This availability is reflected in the more than one hundred fence patents that were registered between 1801 and 1857. Treatises, such as those by A. J. Downing (1849) and William H. Ranlett (1851), provided examples of fashionable designs to be installed in front of suburban yards. Elaborate iron-work fences were particularly popular as enclosures for urban parks [Fig. 6], educational institutions [Fig. 7], and family burial plots [Fig. 8]. These plots, with their elaborate fences, were favorite subjects in illustrated books of the new rural cemeteries [Fig. 9].

Despite the variety of materials and designs, fences shared many common functions. Garden fences, like walls, created micro-climates for plants: southern façades were ideal for promoting early harvests of fruit trees trained on espaliers or protecting tender nursery plants, while northern sides provided sheltered, shady spots in long dry summers. William Cobbett (1819) emphasized the value of fences as shelters in America, given its extremes of heat and cold in contrast to the more temperate English climate.

Fences were the primary boundary markers that defined property lines and distinguished “improved” from “unimproved” land, and early legislation frequently required the fencing of landholdings. Fences also marked divisions within a property owner’s estate, such as those between field, meadow, pasture, orchard, and yard; and, within the garden itself, fences separated areas such as the flower garden, kitchen garden, and nursery [Fig. 10]. The form of the fence often reflected its position or function. For example, post-and-rail fences would mark the boundaries and the divisions of the fields, while a palisaded brick wall served as a retaining wall along a slope, and a picket fence delineated the geometrically regular garden adjacent to the house [Fig. 11]. Not surprisingly, the public view of the property was often framed by more ornamented fence types, and aspiring owners could draw from pattern books, such as that by William and John Halfpenny (1755), for inspiration [Fig. 12]. Numerous images, including Caroline Betts’s painting of Lorenzo on Lake Cazenovia [Fig. 13], show a more elaborate treatment given to the fences in front of houses in contrast to the pale or post-and-rail fences that lined roads and enclosed meadows. William Cobbett (1819), in this vein, described a hierarchy of fences from the “rudest barriers” to the “grandest” and “noblest,” along with “every degree of gradation” in between, and Asher Benjamin (1830) recommended that the size of front fences be suited to the scale of the house.

Distinctions in the fence in the landscape were also made by painting sections or the sides of fences. In several New England examples, including the Dennie overmantle [Fig. 14], utilitarian fences were painted red, while more formal fence sections near the house were painted white. In still other instances, such as the painting View Along the East Battery [Fig. 15], parts of the fence furthest from the house were left unpainted in contrast to the painted fence in front of the house. Views, such as Marie L. Pilsbury’s Louisiana plantation scene [Fig. 16], are especially striking since the white gate of the drive stands out in sharp contrast to the unpainted brown post-and-rail fence. While the selective use of white served to highlight portions of the fence, it also conserved white paint, which was more costly.

Fences were critical for keeping livestock in and garden pests contained. During the early years of settlement when livestock (such as pigs) were not restrained, colonists fenced their garden plots, while animals wreaked havoc on the open fields of Native Americans. In large estates, above-ground fences or sunken fences around the house were used to separate animals grazing in the open land of larger, more naturalistic landscape parks from more densely planted areas immediately surrounding the house, as depicted in Francis Guy’s 1805 painting of Perry Hall in Baltimore [Fig. 17]. Urban gardens faced their share of potential intruders as well, both animal and human, and fences were an important element in defining urban public spaces such as commons, squares, roads, and parks [Fig. 18].

Fig. 18, George Ropes, Salem Common on Training Day, 1808

Fences were symbolic, as well as practical, boundaries. Churchyards were often fenced, in part to protect them from wandering animals, and in part to demarcate the sacred space within. The similarity of yardlike enclosures created around family burials suggests an expression of the eternal domestic unit represented within. In both images and actual landscapes, fences around residences signified the division between personal property and the world beyond. This boundary made the presence and treatment of openings, such as gates, particularly important as they marked the passage between these realms of the public and the private (see Gate). Residential fences were also a visual statement of their owners’ resources and abilities. For example, in William Dering’s portrait of George Booth, the fence in the background divides the near and middle grounds [Fig. 19]. Dering extended the view into the distant, irregular landscape, but signaled the proprietor’s control over the space within the confines of his fence with the regular plantings and trimmed path. Countless representations of houses offer a similar demarcation, usually from the reverse perspective, showing the area surrounding the dwelling separated from the larger landscape by a fence. Thisvdivision of domestic space is seen in modest gardens from Eunice Pinney’s Mother and Child in Mountain Landscape [Fig. 20] to more elaborate estates such as Janika de Fériet’s The Hermitage [Fig. 21].

Descriptions by travelers, such as Timothy Dwight, also demonstrate the significance of fences as an indication of the prosperity or decline of an area. Timothy Bigelow (1805) described the Shaker Village of Hancock, N.Y., as “much better fenced than any other in [the] vicinity.” With some pride, a writer in the Horticultural Register in 1836 found Maine wanting in comparison to Massachusetts since there was “not that attention paid to the appearance of fences about the dwellings, door yards, &c. as with us.” In something of an horticultural parable the Horticultural Register (1837) described the proprietor who spent all his money on his house leaving it to stand “dreary and alone . . . an unsightly broken fence to enclose it” while, with more foresight, “a more finished appearance is presented; the house is neatly painted . . . and a picket fence encircles it.”

--Elizabeth Kryder-Reid