Elizabeth Gaskell's classic explores the simmering, restrained passion between two very different people who fall in love in spite of themselves.
Set against the backdrop of Victorian England's industrial north, it follows the fortunes of Margaret Hale, one of 19th century literature's most original heroines.
Played by Daniela Denby-Ashe, Margaret is a privileged, middle class southerner who is forced to settle in the northern town of Milton.
Margaret takes instant offence to the town and its people. She becomes terribly lonely and hates the dirt, noise and lack of civilisation, blaming their new way of life for her mother's ailing health.
Her distaste for the town and its people extends to handsome and charismatic cotton mill owner John Thornton, (Richard Armitage), whom she believes epitomises everything she dislikes about the North.
However, Margaret gradually begins to settle in Milton. Her social conscience awakens and she befriends some of the local mill workers, learning about their poverty and workplace struggles.
As events conspire to throw Margaret and Thornton together, the two spirited characters have to overcome their repressed physical attraction for one another and conquer prejudices of class and circumstance.
