It might be a head-turner for motorists passing along U.S. 301 just south of Hanover Courthouse, but fences like the new one outside Hanover Courthouse Park were a common sight throughout Virginia in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The roughly 1,000-foot-long fence, made from about 1,200 wooden rails, commemorates a road that passed from Williamsburg to Fredericksburg through Courthouse Park during the American Revolution.

Greg Sager, director of Hanover's Parks and Recreation Department, said the fence punctuates a historic theme at the park.

"Even if you don't agree with where it is or what it looks like -- and we love it -- it starts people asking questions," Sager said.

The fence cost about $12,600 and was paid for by the Central Virginia Historic Preservation Foundation and a state grant.

About 900 11-foot-long rails are held up by 302 supports that are tied together with copper wire.

The fence was constructed using split locust trees from Roan Mountain in Tennessee and Balsam Grove, N.C.

"We can anticipate this fence will last two generations," said David J. Zimmerman, a project coordinator for the preservation foundation, speaking to the sturdiness of the wood. "And if a car runs into it, it's the car that's going to have the problems."

Similar fences, until they went out of style in the 1940s, were designed so farmers could move them to change the dimensions of a field without digging new holes for posts, Zimmerman said.

They lined the Fredericksburg-Williamsburg road where it passed through Hanover between 1720 and 1940.

Zimmerman said as many as 25,000 soldiers used the road during the American Revolution. Lord Cornwallis chased men led by the Marquis de Lafayette north along the road, passing through what is now Courthouse Park in the spring of 1781.

In November of that year, George Washington, his wife, Martha, and her daughter-in-law took the road from Eltham, where Martha Washington's son died of illness, through New Kent County to Hanover Tavern, where they spent a night on their way to Mount Vernon.

In addition to the fence, panels containing information on the historic road are planned for inside a gazebo in Courthouse Park. Zimmerman also hopes to build a platform and three pairs of posts marking where the old road passed through.

Sager said the goal is to balance the park's historic features with its modern ones, which include athletic fields, a concession facility and a relatively new fishing dock on the pond.

"We want to play into that historic theme," Sager said, "but we want to strike a balance."

Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or rwilliams@timesdispatch.com.