A boundary ditch can be traced by geophysical, earthwork and cartographic sources. The boundary cannot be traced in the geophysical survey data and cartographic evidence for its course is ambiguous to the west. While the course of the boundary to the east of the point remains constant on all cartographic sources, the course to the west changes over time. (1)

On the earliest map, surveyed by William Senior and published in 1630, the boundary splits in two. The irregularly shaped enclosure thus formed is shown containing a cottage or house in 1630. This had gone by the time the 1766 tithe map was drawn; the northernmost of the two 1630s boundaries had also been removed and the curve of the southern boundary had been straightened into a dogleg. This picture was unchanged at the time of George Sanderson's map of the country 20 miles around Mansfield, published in 1835, though Sanderson's surveying appears to have been more accurate and the boundary to the south east of the star is shown as having a slight S shaped curve to it. Just a few years later, a map of 1841 shows the boundary continuing straight up the field, this boundary was completely removed by the time of the First Edition County Series Ordnance Survey maps, many of which were surveyed in the 1870s and 1880s in the local area. (1)

<1> David Budge, 2015, Discover King John's Palace: Ploughzone Test Pitting (Unpublished document). SNT5785.