If you’ve ever thought of edging a flower bed with proper professional stuff, you may have been astonished to find that the makers of garden edging assume you live in a flat garden. With no lumps or bumps. And nice even curves. Weird.
Well, Veddw’s not like that and we still have edging issues. But this is about a sorted fencing issue in this lumpy landscape which may be useful to some other lumpy people. My apologies if you are such a keen Veddw follower that this is old hat and boring.
But the brilliant fence in question had rotted and gone depressing and I was thinking it would have to go. But brilliant Charles stepped in and deserves a round of applause. (You could maybe do that if I used sound. You can respond to the talking people? Or not yet? I am both silent and near invisible. Very dated, me.)
This was the fence at its best and when it featured on the front of Charles’s book.
And on the book:
Though I notice that even there it has a wonky strut.
The problem that this fence addresses is:
a. It sits on a boundary and so has to be in precisely that spot.
b. The ground it sits on is full of boulders and odd rocks. So it’s not flat. It’s impossible to put in supporting posts because you can’t bash anything into the ground.
c. It is hiding an ugly chain link boundary fence.
d. The ground slopes, so you can’t get a nice level top.
e. The field behind is a couple of feet lower and belongs to someone else.
Hence the roofing laths or roofing battens. They are mounted on long planks and it is the planks which are supported at either end. The battens are all different lengths so that the lack of flat is no longer obvious. (I’m clever, don’t you think??) And they are pressure treated against rot. Which means they last a whole week! (If you’re lucky. Who’d use wood?)
Sounds simple. It was a nightmare to make and a nightmare to repair. We have done both, working together. The battens when mounted on a plank, with great difficulty, are very heavy. And then have to be put in place, and kept in place while secured. It was not fun.
By now (2026) the fence was looking like the above. Things were growing up it and they were helping to disguise the fact that it was rotting. Not all of it but a sad lot of it. We thought of letting the ivy totally cover it. We have such an ivy fence elsewhere. But it would be a loss. I love this fence.
Then, what do you know, that really useful bloke of mine started work on it. This was in the heatwave!!!!! (He was quite a find, that man, don’t you think? Well spotted, me)
And now it is mended and back to its former glory. Phew. And maybe this thing is a good idea for someone out there, needing a fence. I do hope so.
It’s the view beyond that makes it special?
Definitely worth all the effort, it's a work of art that makes a feature, where there could have just been an ugly fence. Well done Charles.
It’s very clever and quite artsy. I love it!