Depicts country life in late nineteenth-century Oxfordshire through a young woman's experiences in the contrasting communities of Lark Rise, the small hamlet of her childhood, and Candleford, a progressive market town.

Sees the arrival of a dashing and elegant stranger in Candleford. Rich, enterprising, worldly and without a wife, James Dowland is a successful businessman with a string of London hotels and has come to transform Candleford and bring it new prosperity. But not everyone welcomes his entrepreneurial efforts and it isn't long before he is sparring with the spirited yet suddenly flustered Dorcas.