The King's Houses was a medieval palace complex located in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire. Construction began in the mid 12th century, the palace was visited by all the Plantagenet kings and was probably out of use in the mid 15th century. Despite various phases of archaeological investigation it is currently not possible to accurately define the boundaries of the site. This has significant implications for attempts to understand the nature of the site and to put it in its national context. Consequently, the most recent archaeological work has focused on understanding the boundaries of the site, particularly on the southern side. This recent work has established the location of a 13th / 14th century boundary ditch on the south side of the palace. This feature is traceable as a geophysical anomaly, earthwork, and as a land parcel division depicted on maps from the earliest extant map of the area from 1630, through to 1841, after which it was removed, no boundaries at all being depicted in this location by the time of the First Edition Ordnance Survey County Series maps of the late 19th century. Previous excavations indicated that there is significant difference in the distribution and condition of artefacts within the former plough soil (the site was put down to pasture by the current owners in the 1990s) in the different parts of the site. As a result it was determined that the excavation of small test pits (0.5 x 0.5m) in the plough soil on a regular grid should reveal a patterning to the artefacts recovered that would potentially reveal evidence for the nature and distribution of past activity on the site, in much the same way that archaeological fieldwalking reveals the patterning of past activity through the analysis of the spatial distribution of artefacts recovered from the surface of a plough soil. The project would also provide the opportunity for large scale public involvement in archaeological research. Ultimately, around 375 test pits were excavated during the project, covering an area of approximately 1 hectare. The test pits were spaced at five metre intervals, increasing to 10 metre intervals in the northern part of the area of investigation. The pits were all dug by hand using hand tools. 100% of the spoil was dry sieved through a mesh of 8mm. Pottery, flaked stone, metal finds and mortar were retained. Animal bone was recorded and returned to the pit on backfilling as it was considered that medieval bone was unlikely to have survived in the acidic soils, though worked bone was retained.