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Evaluation work on behalf of Historic Properties Group (North) and Scarborough Borough Council associated with the proposed development plan for the Whitby Headland Project continued during July and August. The area of Abbey Lands Farm, to the south of the Abbey itself, was evaluated in advance of the proposed construction of new visitor facilities. In 1993, the area further to the south, designated for the construction of a new car park, had been examined and revealed minimal evidence of medieval activity except for agricultural activity (ridge and furrow) and a small grouping of features located in the trench closest to the track running to the farm from the east.
In 1994 work was concentrated on the field to the west of the farm. This was the intended route of a new footpath from Whitby, and it was also proposed that the necessary services to the new visitor centre would be laid alongside this footpath. Trenches excavated in the southern part of the field produced results similar to those of 1993: the field was largely archaeologically sterile except for traces of ridge and furrow. To the north of the field, however, a substantial bank and ditch earthwork ran westwards, downhill from Abbey Lands Farm. This was sectioned in three places and proved to be a significant feature. The ditch had been remodelled in the recent past in order to lay drainage pipes, and a small counter-scarp bank on its southern edge may have resulted from this activity. On the northern side of the ditch was an earthen bank. This sealed an earlier stone wall which had been robbed after the bank went out of use. At the front of the bank was a robber trench of another stone wall. The bank and soil layers behind it, to the north, contained relatively large amounts of medieval pottery dated to the twelfth to mid thirteenth century. The presence of medieval pottery north of the ditch, bank, and walls, together with its marked absence further south, emphasised the importance of this major feature, which is interpreted as the southern boundary of the medieval monastic precinct.
In the later stages of the evaluation, a portion of monastic bank was removed. Beneath the bank lay an additional major ditch which was filled with partially dressed boulders. The fill was aceramic, although it did contain some small pieces of animal bone. The precise context of this ditch was not established, although it probably represents an earlier element in the development of the boundary. The earthwork to the west of the farm is directly aligned with the access track to the east, which therefore probably preserves the line of the precinct boundary. This hypothesis will be tested in 1995-96.