How long would it take to build a log wall?

[Lord Il Palazzo]

I'm looking for information about how long it would take to build a log wall, particularly the type shown in the fourth picture on this page (depicting the walls of the Jamestown Fort).

Assuming period appropriate tools and enough materials that construction wouldn't be delayed by availability, how long would it take to build that kind of wall? (I'll take whatever answers I can get in terms of the number of workers, the length built per unit time or whatever as long as I know the assumptions involved.)

[TriPolar]

As far as erecting that stockade once the materials were available, a handful of guys could do the whole thing in a few days. They'd dig a trench insert the logs, back fill, and bind them at the top using whatever means they had. The efficiency of the process would vary based on how they approached it. If they were in a hurry, they'd have plenty of men, work hard, and could be done in a hurry. Or they could have done it piecemeal, and there would be a lot of time wasted in started and stopping the whole thing, and the component tasks. If a few men were working on it they'd have to stop and rest occasionally, while a lot of men could keep moving by subbing in fresh workers.

The time taken to cut down the trees and cut the logs to length might be be limited to 10 logs per person per day, allowing time to sharpen axes. It depends on the diameter of those logs. If they had a cross cut saw available, maybe less time, but then they'd spend more time sharpening, and they probably had many more axes than saws. They'd also have to strip the bark off the logs adding time that will vary by the type of tree and size as well. But they would probably gather the logs as part of a larger process of gathering wood for construction and fuel, so the time for each log might be difficult to isolate.

[phreesh]

Do you have prepared logs or are you felling, trimming, etc?
How long do you expect it to be?
How tall will it be?
Are you building gates or towers?

[ZenBeam]

In the picture, I'd guess the walls are eight to ten feet. Does that sound right? How far below ground would they be?

[Lord Il Palazzo]

Thanks for the replies.

For more background: I'm working on figuring out some story elements for a fantasy story (standard pseudo-medieval European setting, plenty of emphasis on the "pseudo") that borrows its setup heavily from Seven Samurai. A small village is aware of an impending attack by bandits and is trying to defend itself as best it can. Among other things, this involves trying to assemble a wall such as the one I described.

The village is small, easily fitting into a square that's 300 ft. on a side (outlying farmland notwithstanding). There are between 10 and 20 (probably closer to 20) families in the village which should give an idea how much labor is available. They are likely felling trees as they go, but may have some prepared logs on hand from a previous attempt at such a wall.
I'm saying that the wall would be about 10 feet high (with slight variations).
I'm really just trying to get a rough idea of the time frame so I can plan out the timeline in my mind and see what would be realistic to expect.

ZenBeam: I don't know, but a quick Googling says telephone poles are burried to 10% of their height+2 ft on one site and 1/6 the above ground length on another. Applying that here would give between 1.6 and 3 ft for a 10 foot wall, which seems too shallow to me, but I could be wrong.

[TriPolar]

Originally Posted by ZenBeam

In the picture, I'd guess the walls are eight to ten feet. Does that sound right? How far below ground would they be?

You know, it's hard to judge the scale. They look something like 12" in diameter or less, but that's tough for me to judge from the picture. I thought maybe the height was 10-12 feet. They'd probably put them in at least a quarter of the visible height into the ground for stability. More depending on the condition of the ground.

ETA: Seeing the post above, 3 feet may be fine for a 10 foot post. That's the same as 10%+2 feet for 10 feet out of the ground. But I'd think they'd go deeper for a stockade fence because the wind could hit it pretty hard.

[lisiate]

Some anecdotes.

It took four of us a weekend to do my brother-in-laws's retaining wall for his new house. About 100 posts involved, but not side by side like a stockade and concreted into their individual holes. And the post holes were dug with an auger, which saved a huge amount of time. The posts we used were much shorter above the ground than your stockade (max of about seven feet at the highest point) and all went in about 3.5 feet into the ground.

Digging an individual posthole by hand takes a fair bit of work, and ground conditions make a huge difference. I've done a few in the past and I'd estimate it took me between 20 and 30 minutes per hole on pretty easy ground. Doing a ditch for a whole line would no doubt be faster than individual holes and depending on your workforce and number of spades you could probably have a number of diggers working on it in parallel to speed things up even more. Oh, and I'd imagine your pseudo-medieval peasants are better ditch diggers than I am.

Thinking about it some more your biggest time sink will be getting all the logs together. Assuming 12" diameter logs you're looking at 14,400 logs to be cut and transported to your fence site. The transportation would be a major exercise even today. (Have a look at what 14,400 logs weigh by tree type with this handy log calculator).

All in all I'd guess building such a palisade would take your 20-30 families an entire summer, maybe more if the logs are a long way away.

[TriPolar]

Um, where did you get 14,400 logs from?

[Lord Il Palazzo]

Thanks for your input lisiate. You made a lot of really good points, but I'm not sure where your figure of 14,400 logs came from? If the village fits into a 300 ft. square, and each log has a 1 ft. diameter, wouldn't the number you needed be 1200 logs? (That's if they build in a perfect square. I assume they would round it off at the corners to save time and materials if possible.)

Either way, I'm starting to realize this would be an even larger undertaking than I'd first guessed. It would probably make more sense if they built their palisade smaller, possibly around a few of the larger buildings in the center of town where they can keep take their reserves of food and whatever valuables they may have and hole up when the raid comes.

Edit: Beaten to the punch by 12 minutes.

[lisiate]

I set the peasants building it with 1 inch stakes rather than 12inch logs, the real figure should be 1,200!

Actually the more I think about it a palisade of stakes on top of an earthern rampart would be much more buildable. Something like a Roman legionary camp (which were thrown up overnight) or a Maori pa (like Tauranga-ika constructed in about 5 weeks. Much less wood to transport and earth doesn't burn.

Here's James Cowan's description of Tauranga-ika:

In the building of this new pa, Kimble Bent and his Hauhau comrades toiled early and late until it was completed. It was of large size, fully defended with palisading, trenches, parapet, and rifle-pits. It was between two and three chains in extreme length at the rear, with a somewhat narrower front. The ground in front was bare of forest, but carried high fern cover; on the flanks were burned clearings, dotted with blackened tree-stumps and cumbered with logs; then the forest, with some beautiful groves of mahoe on its outskirts. Two rows of palisades, high and strong, were erected around the position; the posts, solid tree-trunks, were from six to twelve inches thick and ten to fifteen feet high; the rows were four feet apart. The spaces between the larger stockade-posts were filled in with saplings set upright close together, and fastened by cross-rails and supplejack ties; these saplings did not rest in the ground, but hung a few inches above it, so that between them and the ground a space was left for the fire of the defending musketeers, who were enabled to pour volleys from their trenches inside the war-fence on any approaching enemy with perfect safety to themselves. Behind the inner stockading was a parapet about six feet high and four feet wide, formed of the earth thrown out of the trenches. The interior of the pa was pitted everywhere with trenches and covered ways, so that in the event of attack the defenders could literally take to the earth like rabbits, and live underground secure from rifle-fire, and even from artillery. The place was a network of trenches with connecting passages, roofed over with timber, raupo, and toetoe reeds and earth. To any assault that could be delivered by the Government forces then available, the fort was practically impregnable.

[lisiate]

Oh and in terms of size 3 chains = 198 feet so Tauranga-ika was about 2/3rds the size of your stockade.

[VOW]

When we lived in Germany, I remember the wooded areas abounded in perfect telephone-pole sized trees that were quite tall. They seemed to be pretty close together, too.

You locate your villagers close to a forest like that, it will make the job easier.

Cutting down trees in a thickly-wooded area, though, you will have entanglement problems.

Keep in mind, though, you need to have close access to this type of wooded area. A village of farmers means that the houses/hovels/huts have used up quite a bit of wood, and the farmers had to clear away enough land to support themselves. Those two circumstances are going to push the wooded area further away from where you want to build your stockade.


~VOW

[Meurglys]

My recollection of pallisades from various movies, novels, etc. (e.g. New World, Treasure Island) is that their forts were much less well built.
Saplings rather than mature trunks, several inches apart (but far too narrow gaps to squeeze between) and with rope binding them together and cross spars lashed or nailed on to provide some rigidity.

More like photo #2 here. Other pics show them building it, which might be of interest, although they do have modern tools available.