The site area was stripped of topsoil and subsoil to the top of the deposits of potential archaeological significance. Two Wessex Archaeology test-pits (2 and 3) fell within the excavation area; these were re-emptied in order to provide a window through the deposits. Excavation was thereafter undertaken in plan. A total of four narrow (0.5m) baulks were left within the excavation area; one across the slope of the hillside on the line of a wall foundation, with a further three running down the slope. The results of the excavation indicate that the development site was occupied by a single phase of Saxo-Norman activity, and thereafter appeared to be abandoned until the deposition of layer (1010) and the construction of wall (1033) in the 16th-17th century. In the 18th-19th century the earlier post-medieval wall was robbed out and the hillside was terraced into its modern state.