Prior to designing the layout for my Viking/Dark Age village I wanted to see if I could come up with a “quick and dirty” way of building some wattle pens for the animal “loot”.

It took a lot of searching and some chats with my learned colleagues John G and Steve N until I could come up with an idea that was both quick to make and looked good.

Step 1: Drill some 3.5mm holes randomly on the size m.d.f. you want for your enclosure. As this was a trial I just used a small m.d.f. rectangular coaster from Spotlight.

Step 2: Push through the hole a bamboo skewer to the height you want the fence and cut-off.  I just used side-cutters to give a rough-cut look. Glue them with superglue.

I bought a role of hessian on special at a craft shop to use as the wattle weaving.

Step 3: Cut-off a strip of hessian the length you need for the enclosure. Remember the width you cut-off will be the wattle wall height.

Step 4: When the uprights glue has dried, superglue the enclosure up-rights alternatively on the inside and outside, and wind the strip of hessian in and out in a weave and press onto the poles.

Step 5: I had trouble getting the two ends to stick to the end pole so used some fuse wire to twitch them onto the post.

And there you have your finished wattle enclosure complete with 28mm Pegasus farm animals.

Another option, that would be a bit sturdier, would be to use aluminum fly screen. In this case you would need to twitch the screen to each post. I prefer the look of the hessian as it has a more irregular look.

Now that I have the technique I will work out various size enclosures for the different size animals I have.

Also, I think in the replica Jorvik village at York the communal “conveniences” were also surrounded by a wattle fence – can’t remember, and any way mine will be!!!