The site has been invaluable to help archeologists understand the methods employed in the creation of Iron Age date univallate enclosures, with the partially constructed nature of the site revealing features that would normally be concealed in a completed example, such as for possible setting-out ditches, and piles of chalky soil initially quarried from the ditch and deposited in the interior for finishing the rampart.

Magnetometer surveys from 1997 shows none of the variation normally associated with former occupation sites on chalk geology, and this would seem to confirm that a settlement with typical Iron Age characteristics, such as storage pits, was never established within the boundary of the earthwork.

[9] The earthworks were intended to enclose an area of approximately 3.5 ha (8.6 acres) and was marked by a slight ditch, or possibly an earlier palisaded enclosure.

[9] By contrast the surrounding areas contain a number of features of interest, including a linear ditch that runs along the crest of the west-facing escarpment of Great Litchfield Down and Ladle Hill, and is approximately 2,000 m (2,200 yd) in length.

For a kilometer or so of its visible southern course, this earthwork also forms the western boundary of a large field system on Great Litchfield Down.

To the east of this linear ditch is another large field system, visible both as areas of earthworks and as soil and crop marks on aerial photographs.

The unfinished hillfort therefore appears to be in an atypical Wessex location, being very close to major linear earthwork features, and in an area without an existing field system.

Ladle Hill typifies a calcareous grassland chalk downland habitat now scarce in Britain, and is home to some unusual and rare species.

The earthwork in particular is very rich in species, with a good range of downland grasses and large populations of rare and local plants such as field fleawort, Senecio integrifolius; chalk milkwort, Polygala calcarea; hairy rock-cress, Arabis hirsuta; fragrant orchid, Gymnadenia conopsea; and pyramidal orchid, Anacamptis pyramidalis.

The earthwork escarpment slopes, though species-rich, support fewer species than within the fort, but some, notably clustered bellflower, Campanula glomerata, only occur there.