Margaret Hale ( Daniela Denby-Ashe) and her parents Maria ( Lesley Manville) and Richard ( Tim Pigott-Smith) live in the idyllic town in Helstone in Hampshire. It was adapted for television by Sandy Welch and directed by Brian Percival. The serial is based on the 1855 Victorian novel North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell and takes place in the years surrounding the Great Exhibition of 1851. The story explores the issues of class and gender, as Margaret's sympathy for the town mill workers clashes with her growing attraction to John Thornton ( Richard Armitage). The family struggles to adjust itself to the industrial town's customs, especially after meeting the Thorntons, a proud family of cotton mill owners who seem to despise their social inferiors. It follows the story of Margaret Hale ( Daniela Denby-Ashe), a young woman from southern England who has to move to the North after her father decides to leave the clergy.

North & South is a British television historical drama programme, produced by the BBC and originally broadcast in four episodes on BBC One in November and December 2004.

North & south episode 2