First depicted as orchards in 1851 this area of land has been subject to a number of planning proposals in the late twentieth - early twenty first century. Archaeological desktop study and evaluation in the mid 1990s (Symonds and Badcock 1993; Atkinson 1994) demonstrated first a high potential for medieval remains and the presence of archaeological deposits dating from "at least the twelfth century onwards" (Atkinson 1994, summary). The proximity to Peel Hill Motte also raises the possibility that this site may preserve remains of an as yet unrecorded bailey.