These were now the hunting-grounds of the kings and nobles, while in the leys, hursts, and dens, small groups of huts gave shelter to the swineherds and woodwards who had charge of their lord's property in the woodlands.
The great tree-covered region of Selwood still divided Wessex into two halves; the forest of the Chilterns still spread close to the walls of London; the Peakland was still overgrown by an inaccessible thicket; and the long central ridge between Yorkshire and Scotland was still shadowed by primaeval oaks, pinewoods, and beeches.

Agriculture continued to be confined to the alluvial bottoms, and had nowhere as yet invaded the uplands, or even the stiffer and drier lowland regions, such as the Weald of Kent or the forests of Arden and Elmet.
Only two elements broke the monotony of these self-sufficing agricultural communities.

Those elements were the monasteries and the towns.
A large part of the soil of England was owned by the monks.

They now possessed considerable buildings, with stone churches of some pretensions, in which service was conducted with pomp and impressiveness.

The tiny chapel of St.Lawrence, at Bradford-on-Avon, forms the best example of this primitive Romanesque architecture now surviving in England.