How to Build a Hedgehog Highway

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A single 13cm gap in your fence could save a hedgehog’s life. Here’s everything you need to make your garden part of Britain’s hedgehog network — including a free downloadable template.

By Nikki Piggott  ·  May 2026  ·  8 min read

Last autumn, I started noticing hedgehog droppings in a corner of our back garden — a hopeful sign that one was passing through. Then I watched it reach our fence and simply… stop. It sniffed along the base for a while, turned around, and disappeared back the way it came. Our garden was a dead end.

That evening I went outside with a jigsaw and cut a 13cm square hole in the fence panel. It took four minutes. A week later, the droppings had moved to the other side.

That’s the hedgehog highway in its simplest form: a small gap that connects isolated gardens into a continuous corridor of habitat. Britain’s hedgehog population has fallen by roughly a third since 2000, and fragmented gardens are a significant part of the problem. A hedgehog needs to roam up to two miles a night to find enough food and a mate — but most modern gardens are sealed off with close-board fencing, gravel boards, and solid gates, turning each plot into an island.

You don’t need a wildlife pond or a wildflower meadow to make a difference. You just need a hole.

“A hedgehog needs to roam up to two miles a night. Most garden fences stop them in their tracks. One 13cm gap changes that.”

What size does a hedgehog highway need to be?

The standard recommended size is 13cm × 13cm (roughly 5 inches square). This is large enough for an adult hedgehog — including pregnant or well-fed individuals — to pass through comfortably, but small enough to deter cats, foxes, and most other animals from using it as a regular thoroughfare.

QUICK REFERENCE

13cm × 13cm is the magic number. Use the free template at the end of this post to trace the exact size onto your fence before cutting.

If you’re working with a brick or stone wall rather than timber fencing, a round hole of 13cm diameter (drilled or cut) achieves the same result. Some gardeners prefer to remove a single brick at ground level and leave the gap open — this creates a generous passage and can be partially blocked with a loose stone if needed.

What you’ll need

• Pencil or chalk to mark the cutting line
• Jigsaw (for timber fence panels) or angle grinder with masonry blade (for walls)
• A drill with a pilot bit — to start the jigsaw cut cleanly
• Sandpaper or a wood file to smooth rough edges
• Optional: a short length of timber to frame the gap neatly
• The printable template below (13cm × 13cm square — free download)

BEFORE YOU CUT

If the fence is shared with a neighbour, have a quick conversation first. Most people are happy to help — and ideally you’d create a gap on both sides, connecting three gardens at once rather than two. The Hedgehog Street campaign has a free letter template you can print and post through their door if you’re not sure how to bring it up.

How to build your hedgehog highway, step by step

1. Choose the right location Position the gap at ground level, ideally in a corner of the fence or at the base of a hedge where hedgehogs are most likely to investigate. Avoid spots directly beside a compost bin or active bird feeder — you don’t want to create a predator access point alongside the hedgehog route.
2. Print and position the template Download the free template below and cut it out. Hold it against the fence panel at ground level and trace around it with a pencil or chalk. Double-check the gap will sit fully below any horizontal fence rails.
3. Drill a pilot hole Before you use the jigsaw, drill a hole inside one corner of your traced square — large enough to fit the jigsaw blade through. This avoids the blade skating across the surface when you start cutting.
4. Cut along the marked line Work slowly and keep the jigsaw flat against the panel. Most close-board fence panels are straightforward to cut through — the whole process takes about three to four minutes per panel.
5. Smooth the edges Run sandpaper or a wood file around all four cut edges to remove splinters. Hedgehog bodies are surprisingly low to the ground and they’ll brush against the lower edge as they pass through.
6. Optional: frame the gap For a neater finish, nail a small square of timber around the opening to frame it. This also reinforces the cut edges and prevents the hole from expanding over time. A lipped frame can double as a discreet sign for visitors.
7. Record your highway Log your gap on the Hedgehog Street map at hedgehogstreet.org. Every registered highway is part of a national picture that researchers use to track hedgehog corridors. It takes two minutes and it’s genuinely useful data.

If you have a wall instead of a fence

Brick and stone walls are slightly more involved, but the same principle applies. The easiest approach is to remove a single brick at the base of the wall — most older brick walls have a brick that can be levered out with a bolster chisel. This creates a gap of roughly 22cm × 7cm, which is workable but narrower in height than the standard recommendation. If you can remove two bricks side by side at ground level, you’ll have a more comfortable opening.

For newer walls where removing a brick isn’t feasible, a 13cm round hole drilled with a core drill (available to hire from most hire shops for around £30–40 a day) is effective. Position it as low as possible — ideally with the base of the hole sitting flush with the ground on both sides.

Dimensions at a glance

Situation	Recommended opening	Notes
Timber close-board fence	13cm × 13cm square	Jigsaw + pilot drill. Smooth edges after cutting.
Timber overlap / waney panel	13cm × 13cm square	Cut through both layers where they overlap for a clean edge.
Brick or stone wall	One brick removed (≈22cm × 7cm) or 13cm round hole	Remove brick with bolster chisel, or hire a core drill.
Concrete gravel board	Remove or lift one board	Many gravel boards can be lifted from their channels without cutting.
Solid wooden gate	13cm × 13cm or larger notch at base	Cut from the bottom edge. Frame the notch to maintain gate strength.

What about gravel boards?

Gravel boards — the long horizontal boards that sit at the base of many fence panels — are one of the most overlooked barriers in British gardens. Even if you’ve cut a gap in the fence panel itself, a solid gravel board below it will block access completely. Check whether yours can be lifted out of their channels without tools: many can. If they’re fixed, cut a notch using the same method as the panel above, or remove and replace with a shorter length that leaves a gap at one end.

What about your gate?

Side gates are often the last piece of the puzzle — and the most important one. A hedgehog that enters through a fence gap can still become trapped if the gate on the other side is solid to the ground. A notch cut into the base of a wooden gate (13cm wide × 13cm deep) maintains the gate’s structural integrity while opening up the route. Alternatively, lift the gate on slightly longer hinges so it sits 13cm above the ground — this works especially well for lightweight garden gates.

DID YOU KNOW?

The People’s Trust for Endangered Species estimates that if just one in three UK gardens had a hedgehog highway, the impact on population connectivity would be significant enough to measure at a landscape scale. In 2024, over 85,000 gaps had been logged on the Hedgehog Street map — but the majority of British gardens still have none.

Making your garden worth the trip

A hedgehog highway gets them in — but what keeps them coming back is a garden that offers food, cover, and water. You don’t need to do everything at once.

The single most useful thing after creating the gap is leaving a shallow dish of fresh water at ground level. Hedgehogs are surprisingly prone to dehydration, particularly in dry summers, and a reliable water source will bring them back night after night. Never put out milk — it causes serious digestive problems. Plain water, changed daily, is exactly what they need.

After water, a log pile in a quiet corner of the garden provides both a foraging habitat (hedgehogs eat the beetles and woodlice that colonise decaying wood) and a potential nesting site. You don’t need to buy logs — any pile of untreated timber, even a few old fence posts stacked loosely, will do. Leave it undisturbed from October through April to avoid disturbing hibernating individuals.

For feeding, if you want to supplement their diet: wet cat or dog food (not fish-based), or specialist hedgehog biscuits, placed in a feeding station with a hole just large enough for a hedgehog. The station keeps the food dry and discourages cats from helping themselves.

Will I actually see a hedgehog?

Probably not with the naked eye — hedgehogs are shy, mostly solitary, and active between about 9pm and 4am. But there are a few easy ways to know whether your highway is being used. The simplest is a tracking tunnel: a cardboard tube roughly 15cm wide with a strip of white paper inside and a smear of non-toxic paint at the entrance. Any hedgehog passing through will leave a trail of footprints on the paper. Instructions for making one are included in the downloadable template below.

Wildlife cameras (trail cameras) are increasingly affordable — you can find a decent one for £30–50 — and watching the footage from the first week after you open the gap is genuinely one of the more satisfying experiences a garden can offer. In my experience, new gaps are discovered within three to five nights if there’s a hedgehog in the neighbourhood.

Free downloadable template

To make the cutting process as straightforward as possible, I’ve put together a one-page printable template. Print it at 100% (no scaling), cut it out, and use it to trace the exact 13cm × 13cm square onto your fence before you pick up the jigsaw. The same sheet includes a brief guide to making a simple tracking tunnel, and a sign you can attach beside the gap to let neighbours know what it’s for.

FREE DOWNLOAD

Hedgehog Highway Template

Printable 13cm × 13cm cutting guide, tracking tunnel instructions,
and a neighbour-friendly information sign. One page, print at 100%.

One gap, two gardens, one corridor

I’ve now cut gaps in both of our fence panels — front garden and back — and a neighbour on the other side has done the same. What was three isolated plots is now a corridor of roughly 600 square metres. It’s not wilderness, but it’s enough. The droppings appear most mornings between April and November, and last spring we watched, via a trail camera, a mother with four hoglets moving through in single file at half past midnight.

None of it required planning permission, special skills, or more than an afternoon’s work. If you have a fence and a jigsaw, you have everything you need.

“What was three isolated plots is now a corridor of 600 square metres. Last spring: a mother with four hoglets, moving through in single file at half past midnight.”

Download the template, cut the gap, and register it on the Hedgehog Street map. Then leave a dish of water and go to bed. By morning, you’ll have a new visitor.

About the author

Nikki Piggott  writes about eco-friendly and sustainable living from her home and garden in the UK. She has been growing, foraging, and rewilding her plot for over a decade, and believes that small, practical changes make the biggest difference.

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