Excavations revealed the gentle sloping base of the leat, a sluice structure cutting into the leat banks, alignments of nails and bolts, and a substantial bank of clay. The features seemed to represent a series of alterations to the water system related to the implementation of a 42ft diameter waterwheel at New Mill further downstream:

- An earlier version of the leat may have fed water through an earlier lower launder found during previous excavations at the Papplewick Lane Wall structure, taking water below the road.
- The replacement high level leat was altered and widened to accommodate a sluice structure, built with a western curved wall, slabbed floor and possible control mechanism that has been lost.
- A wooden launder seems to have them been added to funnel water into the now narrowed (and set slightly higher) niche in the Papplewick Lane Wall structure, but a system that still took water below the road.
- The launder was then altered at its northern end, and the addition of slabs and clay enable the water level to be raised.
- More clay was later added forming a curved clay bank at the southern end of the, supposedly now defunct, sluice structure. The clay bank likely created a small holding pond.
- The water seems to then have been funnelled into a linear ditch, cut through the clay, which may have fed water back into the still functioning launder but from a higher level. This could have been to prevent silting towards the road.
- The ditch and surrounding areas were then backfilled with the same material once the whole system fell out of use. The backfill abutting the clay bank and infilling the sluice structure contained a high volume of fragmented stonework, suggesting the destruction of a structure.

It is clear that there were a number of alterations that are almost archaeologically invisible due to their short-lived nature, but these constant changes do show that successive revisions of the system were required in order to ensure it worked efficiently.

<1> Laura Parker and Tom Keyworth, 2023, Papplewick Lane Leat, Moor Pond Woods, Papplewick,Nottinghamshire: Report on a Community Archaeology Excavation (Unpublished document). SNT5731.

<2> Laura Binns, 2017, Report on an Archaeological Audit and an Appraisal of Future Archaeological investigation - Moor Pond Woods - Papplewick (Unpublished document). SNT5693.