An experimental investigation of the flow around a vertical fence was carried out using a PIV velocity field measurement technique. The vertical fence was embedded in a turbulent boundary layer. The instantaneous velocity fields measured at cross-sectional planes reveal complex longitudinal vortices that vary in size and strength, developing from the upstream location. In the instantaneous vorticity and velocity field data, the shear flow separated from the fence top is highly turbulent and shows unsteady flow characteristics. The topography of the ensemble averaged velocity fields, especially the separation bubble formed behind the fence, shows that the spatial distributions of streamwise velocity (U) and vertical (V) are symmetric, the spanwise velocity (W) is skew-symmetric with respect to the central xy-plane(z=0).