© Nigel Homer. Creative Commons License: www.geograph.org.uk/reuse.php?id=116884

This zone is found in the districts of Barnsley, Rotherham and Doncaster and runs in a strip southeast to northwest across the centre of the county. Fields within the zone are predominantly used for large-scale intensive arable farming.  This has been the cause of significant loss of field boundaries in the late 20th century as they are removed to create larger agglomerated fields.  The remaining field boundaries are a mix of hedgerows and fence lines, some times with fences supplementing gaps in poorly maintained hedged boundaries.

Despite this boundary loss, closer examination of this zone reveals a deeper history of an agricultural landscape planned in the medieval period or earlier and based on medieval common arable systems. Evidence for this earlier history includes field boundaries and surviving road patterns which exhibit the characteristic sinuous curves of former open field systems.