Although the original plans for the enclosure of the marsh included the construction of a canal, it was not built, but there remained an intent to develop a quay on Braunton Pill, to replace the quay at Wrafton. To this end, three plots of land were bought in the 1840s, but no further progress was made, until the Bassett Estate was sold to Mr William Williams in 1852. Williams proposed a grand plan to straighten Braunton Pill, and to enclose further fringes of land, together with the area known as Horsey Island, a barren sandbank the enclosing of which Vancouver had suggested was doomed to failure in his original report of 1808.