The origins of the striking radial road pattern are unknown. It indicates that Docking was a very important location at one time, but even the millennium of this cannot be guessed at. Unknown also is the institution here which provided the importance, sited on its hilltop. The focus of the pattern is the present church, but this does not prove that the institution concerned was necessarily religious. However, there are no traces of any defensive earthworks appropriate to a putative hillfort.