Wrought iron is a malleable material that offers the potential for a variety of styles.
If you gaze upon a metallic fence surrounding a Gothic mansion or a historic cemetery, it is most likely made of either cast iron or wrought iron. While cast iron is cheaper, wrought iron is a more malleable medium. This means that the possibilities of designs traditionally hand-crafted by blacksmiths were more intricate and diverse with wrought iron. Whether you are trying to identify the style of a wrought-iron fence at a historic landmark or would like to incorporate one in your home's landscape, many options and styles exist. Does this Spark an idea?
Picket
A picket wrought-iron fence
A simple wrought-iron fence design is the picket style. It consists of a series of vertical stakes made of wrought iron. Each of the stakes or pickets are parallel to one another and connected via horizontal railings to form the fencing structure. Often wrought-iron picket fences have ornamental caps atop each of the stakes or pickets. Arrowheads and fleur-de-lis are examples of shapes of these ornamental caps.
Bow and Hairpin
Wrought-iron fences may also be either a hairpin or a bow style. The shapes of the fence panels are the same for both these styles, that of an upside-down test tube, but the bows are generally wider than hairpins. Sometimes wrought-iron fences incorporate both hairpins and bows; in this case, hairpins are attached to the horizontal railings in a parallel fashion, and a larger bow surrounds each of the hairpins. Some wrought-iron fences even intersperse pickets with either hairpins or bows.
Scalloped Picket
A "scalloped picket" wrought-iron fence may describe two different styles. According to the Chicora Foundation and the Texas Historical Commission, such a style involves interspersing pickets with ornamental scrolls. There are also examples of wrought-iron fences with what you might normally associate with a scalloped design -- concave or convex dips or rises in the center of the fence formed by different lengths of pickets.
Ornamental Features
Due to the malleability of wrought iron and the individuality of each craftsman who traditionally formed fences out of the material, the range of ornamental features you may see on wrought-iron fences is enormous. According to the Historic Charleston Foundation, some common shapes associated with wrought-iron fences during the 18th and 19th centuries were fleur-de-lis, flowers, leaves, scrolls, and spears, also known as arrowheads. The "Old House Journal" offers an example lacking pickets, bows or hairpins; instead, the space between the railings includes elaborate scrolls forming a floral theme and zigzag patterns at the bottom. The New York Public Library's Photo Gallery offers examples of ornamental caps that look like birds' feet, crown shapes, hearts and multicurved pickets.
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