In the 1840s, Cranford is ruled by the ladies. They adore good gossip, and romance and change is in the air, as the unwelcome grasp of the Industrial Revolution rapidly approaches their beloved rural market-town.
It was a bumpy one, with travel sickness in first class and romance in third, with Peggy Bell and young Mr Buxton literally thrown together, but it took us clanking into the future, or at least episode two.