Only from around the seventeenth century is there evidence for the building of stone walls, superseding these. These ditches and banks often surrounded newly assarted , or cleared, areas as the population grew prior to the Black Death in 1348. One such is the area of Lawrence Field, Derbyshire, above the parent manor of Upper Padley. Within this, evidence of plough strips exists, along with two boat-shaped stone huts. The pattern of farms and hamlets in the Lizard Peninsula, Cornwall, was largely complete by the fourteenth century.
Many field systems are irregular and undatable, but form a number of distinct types.
These can be seen throughout the White Peak, Derbyshire, with fine examples at Wensley. This system involved dividing the arable land of a township into a multitude of strips , those belonging to each farmer being distributed around the township. These strips were grouped into furlongs , which formed two or three common fields. Hedges were few, with animals allowed to graze after harvest, and during the whole year on the parts left fallow. Some of these can still be seen in the landscape today, including Castleton, Derbyshire, but the 'how' and 'why' of their construction is still not entirely clear, although it may have been a result of using a particular type of plough.