Palissade

Palissade is a fence or enclosure constructed from timber stakes driven into the ground to create a barrier. The vertical pales are typically sharpened at the top and may be connected by horizontal rails or bindings to increase stability. Palisades have served defensive, boundary, and enclosure purposes across different historical periods.

The term comes from the French palissade, itself from an older word for a stake or pale; the design originates in wooden stakes forming a wall, sometimes reinforced with earthworks.

Construction and design commonly use softwood species such as pine or elm. Pales or boards are cut into narrow vertical sections and arranged in a linear barrier; as a fortification, lines of stakes may be driven into a trench and bound with cord or saplings. Heights vary, ranging from around a meter or two for garden fences to several meters in military stockades, with varying spacing between the pales.

Historically, palisades protected camps, towns, and frontier settlements. They appear in ancient and medieval fortifications and in colonial settings as stockade enclosures; they were often used as temporary or quickly erected barriers before more durable stone walls or later fences were constructed.

Today palisades are common in landscaping and security fencing. Modern palisade fences may use treated timber or metal posts and are designed for privacy, deterrence, or boundary delineation. The term also persists in architecture and urban planning to describe vertical timber fencing.