Cranford

BBC’s Cranford: it’s a classic

Max Davidson visits Lacock, the Southern village playing a Northern one in the BBC’s Cranford.

Knutsford, Lacock. Lacock, Knutsford. What’s the difference? If the BBC can rig phone-ins, it is hardly going to balk at replacing a Cheshire village with a Wiltshire village, is it?

Elizabeth Gaskill grew up in Knutsford, Cheshire, where she was raised by her aunt, and expressed her affection for that no-nonsense rural community, dominated by its womenfolk, in Cranford. But television, not for the first time, has tweaked the script.

You think Judi Dench, Eileen Atkins, Imelda Staunton and the other stars of the Sunday-night adaptation of Cranford on BBC1 are salt-of-the-earth Northerners, living not far from Manchester? Think again. That glorious main street, swirling with morning mist – its crooked houses as much a part of Cranford as the actors themselves – is actually in Lacock. Near Bath. Yes, those Northerners are just a load of Southern jessies, commuting to work along the M4.

The BBC, understandably, cites budgetary considerations in its choice of location. Lacock is owned by the National Trust and free of such 21st-century encumbrances as television aerials. The village could have been made for period dramas and has featured in them again and again. The Mayor of Casterbridge, Pride and Prejudice, Moll Flanders…The list goes on. Lacock Abbey, the local stately home, was used in one of the Harry Potter films.

Does the shift from Cheshire to Wiltshire matter? Not much, to be honest. In the novel, Cranford is not so much a geographical location as a state of mind: village England at its parochial but kindly best. It would be nice if the Northern timbre of the original novel could have been more faithfully preserved. But any Cranford fans moved to visit Lacock will get a real flavour of the world Mrs Gaskell was describing.
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It is not just an exceptionally pretty village, set in rolling Wiltshire countryside, but a miniaturised version of an England we are in danger of losing altogether. From the moment you turn off the main road – past a field of free-range hens, past old timbered cottages – you are in an enchanted world.

How did Mrs Gaskell describe Cranford? “…trim gardens full of choice flowers without a weed to speck them”. She would have loved Lacock, with its neat lawns giving on to well-kept streets. Every house, every building, every shop, seems to be part of a stage set. There is not a discarded crisp-packet to be seen, not a syllable of graffiti.

“Closed Daily 1pm to 2pm,” reads the sign outside the post office, which transmogrified into a greengrocer’s for the series. Where else in England do people still take lunch hours?

“All standards of fitness acceptable,” says the flier of the Lacock Luvlies, advertising their Monday-night keep-fit classes. What town-centre gym is so accommodating?

This is village England as we know, love and occasionally mock it. The noticeboard outside the village hall advertises a talk on “Occupational clothing from 1820″. The Lacock & District Garden and Allotment Association has just been treated to “Weather forecasting” by an expert from the Met Office. A performance of Handel’s Messiah – what else? – is scheduled for the village church.

Another fragment of the novel flutters into my head: “Things that many would despise, and actions which it seemed scarcely worthwhile to perform, were all attended to in Cranford.” The genius of Mrs Gaskell, arguably, lay in the fact that she did not despise those things herself. Unlike the more caustic Jane Austen, she could see the thread of real goodness running through the banalities of village life.

I suspect that in Lacock – with its friendliness and its lack of rush and its homely pubs and shops, untainted by crude commercialism – she would have felt utterly at home.

Lacock Abbey is closed in winter, but you can celebrate “Christmas in the Cloisters” there next weekend (December 1 and 2) from 11am to 3pm. Fair stalls, mulled wine, mince pies and a chance to visit Father Christmas. Adults £2, children free.

Off the set
# At the Sign of the Angel (01249 730230, www.lacock.co.uk), a period inn in Lacock, offers double rooms with breakfast from £105.
# The Carpenters Arms on Church Street, Lacock (01249 730203), offers wholesome pub grub in congenial surroundings. Main courses from about £9.
# The Fox Talbot Museum in Lacock (01249 730459) commemorates the life and work of William Fox Talbot, a former resident of Lacock Abbey and one of the pioneers of modern photography. In winter, it is open on Saturday and Sunday only, from 11am to 4pm. Admission: £3.60 adults, £1.80 children. Closed December 16-January 5.
# For further information about Lacock Abbey, the village of Lacock, and special events at Lacock, see www.nationaltrust.org.uk/wessex.
# Other visitor attractions within a short distance of Lacock include the prehistoric stone circle at Avebury, the busy market town of Malmesbury, Castle Coombe – often cited as the prettiest village in England – and Bradford-on-Avon, with its Georgian Bath-stone houses rising steeply above the river.

from The Telegraph

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