Riddle Me This

Riddled Fence in NLOur friend Margaret Ayad recently visited the Shag It Cafe, and captured this shot of our Riddled Fence. It brought back memories of when I made it, back when we first bought the cottages.

We needed a fence between our own home, and our guests’ cottages – for their privacy, and our own. Our new neighbours suggested we construct a ‘riddled fence,’ a Newfoundland classic, by weaving saplings together like you see here. It took a lot of work, but the end result is quite pretty and has proven to be quite solid. Just goes to show that sometimes the old methods can work just as well as the new!

All in a Day’s Work

installing a fence at our Newfoundland resort inn and spaHere are Hubert and Leslie, who can do just about everything, putting up a wrought iron fence at The Doctor’s House. It’s about 150 years old and had been seriously damaged, but a local welding shop refurbished it. With these expert hands installing it, we think it looks pretty nice! Repairs at our Newfoundland resort inn and spa

Riddle Rod Fence

Building an old fashioned fence in Newfoundland

Here is an old Newfoundland fence like I had never seen before. Made with riddle rods (sometimes called wriggle rods), they were quite common around the bay a few generations ago. There are small sticks weaved in and out over three horizontal sticks (called longers or lungers). They require no nails and are extremely sturdy and designed to withstand high winds.

This is an amazing privacy fence we have under construction – we’re planning to build more!Building a traditional Newfoundland fence