Fishermen from Portugal, the Basque provinces of France and Spain, Northern France (perhaps Normandy) and West Country England are known to have frequented eastern Newfoundland during the first half of the 1600s, some as early as the first decade of the 16th century.

The most obvious feature of the defensive works is a large ditch, some 6.1 metres (20 feet) wide and about 1.2 metres (4 feet) deep that seems to have bordered at least the entire eastern side of the colony.

Between 1992 and 1995 a portion of the 17th-century waterfront was revealed.