No earthworks break the surface, no stones protrude, and nothing in the landscape announces that anything is there at all. The site was detected only through a magnetic gradiometer survey, a technique that measures subtle variations in the soil's magnetic properties to reveal buried features without disturbing the ground. What it found was a compact arrangement of activity compressed into an area roughly 180 metres from north to south and between 60 and 90 metres wide, with further features continuing beyond the western edge of the surveyed zone.

The survey identified at least three small rectangular enclosures, each measuring up to roughly 17 metres by 7 metres, of a size consistent with houses or agricultural buildings. Grouped around them are a series of small associated plots, typically around 20 metres by 10 to 30 metres, suggesting something like a farmstead or a modest cluster of dwellings with their attendant yards or garden plots. The whole arrangement sits on land that was once part of the demesne of Coolcliffe House, the private estate lands surrounding a country house, which means the ground here has likely been under managed agricultural use for centuries, quietly sealing whatever lies beneath. The Corrock River runs approximately 50 metres to the west at its nearest point, and that proximity to water would have been a practical consideration for any community choosing to settle here.