You enter Fort Raleigh National Historic Site between two small block
houses built of logs, constituting a part of the boundary stockade. This
stockade is of modern construction, and originally it marked the
boundary of the 16.45 acre tract of the Roanoke Island Historical
Association which was administered as a North Carolina State historical
park between 1935-41. In 1951, one side of the stockade was relocated
and the area of the national historic site was increased to 18.50 acres.
Although quite modern and located along a modern boundary, it recalls
that Governor White on returning to the site of the colony in 1590 found
it fortified by a palisade of tree trunks (location still unknown) and
hence creates a sense of stepping upon hallowed ground upon entering the
gateway. The feeling is certainly justified, because the 18.50 acres lie
on the entrance side of the fort and even if the fort had held only
Grenville's 15 men they would have trod this ground many times. As there
were 108 persons in the first colony under Lane, who built the fort, and
150 in the "Lost Colony," the use of the area near the entrance to this
fort must have been considerable.