End of an era as BBC says no to period drama

t.cork@bepp.co.uk

For years they have brought a glimpse of an idyllic rural golden age to the nation’s living rooms – largely from an industrial estate near Bristol.

But now the BBC has confirmed the demise of the West-made TV series

The current series, the fourth, began on screens at the start of this month, but is only half the length – six episodes – of the first three.

The BBC has now revealed no more will be made this year at the West locations which have become synonymous with the taste of a gentle Victorian summer in the depths of a freezing 21st century winter.

The series, starring Julia Sawalha and Olivia Hallinan, is shot on location in the countryside at Neston Park, near Corsham in Wiltshire, where a farmyard has been transformed into Candleford’s now famous High Street, with the cottages of Lark Rise a few fields away. Interior scenes, including Dorcas’s post office, the Pratt sisters’ store and the Timmins’s home, are filmed in a couple of units on an industrial estate in Yate, near Bristol. The show takes up to six months to film, over the summer, and has been broadcast since 2008 on Sunday evenings from January.

But those locations and the scenes will be no more, as the BBC has decided the show should ‘quit while we’re ahead’ – even though more people than ever are watching the programme. Viewing figures for the first two episodes peaked at around 7.5 million, almost a million more than previous series.

BBC1 controller Danny Cohen said: “

Instead, the BBC has commissioned new period dramas, including a new adaptation of Dickens’

The news is a blow to the economy in the West, with the show bringing hundreds of thousands of pounds to the rural economy in north-west Wiltshire, as well as tourists looking for the stunning locations around Corsham seen on screen. It will also mean a loss to Bath’s kudos for celebrity-spotting such as household names like Matilda Zeigler and Olivia Hallinan.