Part of the remit of The Gefrin Trust is to support, facilitate and pursue research on the Brian Hope- Taylor finds collection from the excavations, the Hope-Taylor archive currently housed largely with Historic Environment Scotland, and to set out a new research programme for the site and its associated collections.
In 2007-10 the Trust, in collaboration with the Department of Archaeology, Durham University, pursued a programme of experimental geophysical prospection on the site. The Till-Tweed gravels are fairly notorious for creating both acidic conditions and being fairly unsusceptible to various forms of geoprospection. During the winters of 2008-9 Sarah Semple (Durham University) and Alex Turner (University of Newcastle) undertook a resistivity survey on the fields to the north and south of the road that bisects the site.
The results were new and compelling, revealing a range of potential new structures that had hitherto not been identified by aerial photographic survey. Trial work using caesium gradiometry by Phil Howard of Durham University was less effective in revealing features, quite possibly due to poor magnetic susceptibility of the Milfield geology. The results from the survey are now published along with new data from infrared photography by Darren Oliver, a Durham undegraduate, conducted using a drone. Together these surveys confirm that new, as yet undated, features await further research and discovery.