This area is classed by the "Isle of Axholme Landscape Characterisation Project" (Miller 1997) as part of a "Moorland Allotment Sub-Zone" (p72). This area marks an area which until the presently available mapping (c.2002) displayed most of the historically mapped field boundaries and settlement pattern most characteristic of the type as described by Miller as, "long narrow intakes . . . [including] farms and smallholdings characterised by regular plots in blocks and strips, some of the latter up to 3 km long. . ." (p72-74). A similar landscape of narrow parallel plots once extended to the north but since the 1980s has been altered by the construction of Thorne Colliery and Moorends colliery village as well as the amalgamation of field units and the conversion of the land to intensified arable production.