This is a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Winifred Holtby's classic novel of 1930s Yorkshire. It is the summer of 1932, and Sarah Burton embarks on a new beginning as the headmistress of Kiplington High School for girls. There she encounters unenthusiastic pupils, distant staff and a run-down building, but she is determined to inspire. When she organises her first community event, she begins to feel more at home. However, her next bright idea - taking the girls out on a snowy clifftop walk - gets her into trouble with local landowner and school governor Robert Carne. As Sarah learns more about Carne's troubled home life and his concern for his daughter Midge, she finds herself increasingly drawn to him. But she soon has more on her mind than romance, as she struggles to prevent bright but poor schoolgirl Lydia Holley from losing her scholarship...Starring Sarah Lancashire, Philip Glenister and Carole Boyd, this gripping adaptation memorably evokes the lives, loves and sorrows of the inhabitants of South Riding.