What archaeologists found, once excavation began in advance of development at Brigown, was the western arc of what appears to have been a circular enclosure, defined by a fosse, a term for a ditch typically dug to mark or defend a boundary, often associated with early medieval settlement sites. The arc itself runs to roughly 34 metres in length, between half a metre and one and a half metres deep, and about two and a third metres wide, substantial enough to suggest the original structure was no minor feature in the landscape.

What made the site particularly arresting was what filled the ditch rather than what surrounded it. Recovered from the northern end of the fosse were large quantities of metal slag and charcoal, the residue of metalworking, most likely smithing of some kind. Several small pits and linear cuts, both inside and outside the enclosure line, also contained slag and charcoal, pointing to repeated or sustained activity rather than a single episode. Along the southern half of the fosse, excavators identified what may have been a palisade trench, a narrow slot that would once have held upright timber posts, running immediately to the east of and parallel with the ditch. The combination of a ditched boundary, a possible timber palisade, and concentrated metalworking debris creates a suggestive picture of an enclosed working space, though its precise function and date remain uncertain. No datable finds were recovered from the fosse, which means the site cannot yet be placed within a specific period with any confidence, leaving the story, for now, genuinely incomplete.