does anyone know where the original checkout field settings are, within the Woocommerce plugin files? E.g The original field labels and placeholders etc?
For Original Fields please visit on your "woocommerce/templates/checkout/form-billing.php"
Here you will see a function
//This below line of code is responsible to get the fields
$fields = $checkout->get_checkout_fields( 'billing' );
//this below code is resposnible to echo those fields/labels etc
woocommerce_form_field( $key, $field, $checkout->get_value( $key ) );
If you want to go in depth please visit woocommerce/includes/wc-template-fucntions.php "function woocommerce_form_field( $key, $args, $value = null )", check this.
Hope this may help you out!