The first modern written record that unquestionably relates to the Wheeldale structure was in 1720 by the antiquarian John Warburton. This first publication of the structure's existence was followed by debate over the structure's function, course, and history amongst local historians and antiquarians in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as its existence came to broader attention. In a private letter dating from October 1724, Thomas Robinson of Pickering states that approximately of the structure, which he describes as a road, were visible at that time, stretching south from Dunsley village: