My 3 year old is adventurous, he is fascinated by bird's especially ducks and geese, there are qite a few next door where they have a very old clay pond for them to live in. The hedge is patchy due to bad management (that is being dealt with) but for now there are several biggish gaps where a little lad could get through. So for safetys sake and peace of mind I decided to make a fence. I wanted it to be cheap, quick, simple, low impact. The solution I came up with is made from oak and chestnut post's, and cleft hazel rails. Its a scaled down version of the fences you see in hampshire and other place's. I split out the posts with wedge's and drilled 3 X 1 1/4 inch holes to take the rails which are overlapped and that is the only means of them being fixed-no nails, screws etc. I made a tempory cleaving brake to split the hazel in a controlled fashin. The hazel poles were cut last Friday they are about 1 1/2 to 2 inch diameter mostly. The brake makes the job much less chancy, I only had 2 poles run out, as you can see they werent the straightest poles in the wood, but they were free of charge from a wood land that had gone a bit wild. Actually I prefer the winding twisty effect rather than if they were all perfectly parrallel sawn posts and rail's
Overall view, fence is about 2 foot 6 high, each section is about 5 foot 6
Close up of how the rails go into the pots. They are quite firm, like a pair of folding weges.
Starting to split a hazel pole
half way through. If it starts to run off unequally you pres down onto the fat side while you rive the pole open, this straightens it up again
Produces a book matched pair of rails from one wonky pole!!
The total time was probably a full day not including going to cut the poles (an afternoon's work) Hardest part was drilling the holes, my left elbow is still affected by tennis bluddy elbow and it was difficult to say the least. I couldnt source a sds bit any where in Diss so had to use the brace and bit instead
The oak and chestnut will last well even though its in the ground, and the hazel will be OK seeing as its not touching the ground. Very satisfying job, good riving practise, and most importantly, the Wife is very pleased and the little lad is fettled 
Overall view, fence is about 2 foot 6 high, each section is about 5 foot 6
Close up of how the rails go into the pots. They are quite firm, like a pair of folding weges.
Starting to split a hazel pole
half way through. If it starts to run off unequally you pres down onto the fat side while you rive the pole open, this straightens it up again
Produces a book matched pair of rails from one wonky pole!!
The total time was probably a full day not including going to cut the poles (an afternoon's work) Hardest part was drilling the holes, my left elbow is still affected by tennis bluddy elbow and it was difficult to say the least. I couldnt source a sds bit any where in Diss so had to use the brace and bit instead
The oak and chestnut will last well even though its in the ground, and the hazel will be OK seeing as its not touching the ground. Very satisfying job, good riving practise, and most importantly, the Wife is very pleased and the little lad is fettled 
