Gallery

Heritage Timber Fences — Picket Fence Design Gallery

Photographs of period timber front fencing.

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59 photographs and drawings

White timber front fence with picket panels, turned spindle frieze and cross-braced driveway gates

What you get

Australian made — every product, made in our Bayswater workshop since 1984
25 year guarantee — on external LOSP H3 treated pine, above ground
An answer within one business day — we reply to enquiries and quote requests
In stock, or made in 1 to 4 weeks — some of the range is in stock; the rest is made to order
Timber-profile matching — from a photograph, drawing or sample

Canterbury timber gate, boarded panel with pierced baluster silhouettes, on a plain background

Hawthorn timber gate, cross-braced boarded panel below a turned spindle frieze, on a plain background

White timber picket gate with a cross-braced boarded panel, hung in a matching picket fence

Tall charcoal boarded timber fence and gate along a brick-paved side path

Pale blue arched timber entrance gate with fretwork above, hung in a picket fence

White timber front fence with picket panels and cross-braced double driveway gates, along a footpath

The front fence is the first thing the street sees and the last thing most restorations get to. It is also the cheapest of the big period gestures: a correct picket fence and gate will do more for a Victorian frontage than any amount of work on the verandah behind it, because it re-establishes the boundary line the house was designed to sit behind.

What makes a fence look period rather than generic?

Three things, in this order:

The picket top. The shape cut on the head of each picket is the whole character of the fence — spear, round, chamfered, gothic. It is a small piece of joinery repeated a hundred times, which is exactly why getting it wrong is so visible.
The spacing. Period pickets sit closer than modern fencing. Too wide and it stops reading as a fence and starts reading as a screen.
The gate. The gate is where the fence is judged, because it is the part people stand in front of. It should match the picket profile and usually sits slightly taller.

What do you supply?

Heritage & Decorative Timber Products makes the fencing timber and the gates — pickets cut to profile, and timber gates and lych gates made to your opening. Matching an existing fence is normal work here: send a single picket, or photograph one square-on with a tape measure alongside, and the profile can be reproduced.

We do not install. What leaves here is the timber, cut and shaped, delivered to your home or to site.

Close-up of a white timber front fence with turned balusters and a ball-topped post

What is it made from?

LOSP H3 treated pine. H3 is the hazard class for timber used outdoors above ground — it is the right rating for pickets, rails and gates, and as external LOSP H3 treated pine used above ground those carry our 25 year guarantee.

It is not the rating for the fence posts themselves where they go into the earth. In-ground timber is H4. Ask when you order so the posts are specified correctly, because putting an above-ground product in the soil is the one way to lose the guarantee on day one.

Prime and paint all six sides before the fence goes up. Australian made, delivered Australia-wide. Call 03 9720 1996.

On the house