- Period (currency): Extended. Although it is at present impossible to determine the precise duration of individual sites, the lack of evidence for re-use or reconstruction at excavated sites suggests that individual enclosures were used for relatively short periods during the late Bronze Age/middle Iron Age.
- Rarity: Rare. It is not posible to give a precise estimate of the number of recorded examples, but it is likely to be less than 250.
- Diversity (form): Low. Although the sample is small and the typology provisional, it is suggested here that two broad types can be recognised within the class.
- Period (representativity): High: Clothes-line enclosures are one of a fairly restricted range of monument classes known for the late Bronze Age/Iron Age.
Assigning scores to these criteria following the scheme set out in the Monuments Evaluation Manual, clothes-line enclosures yield a class importance value of 28. This places the class just under halfway up the range of possible values (max=64).