Welcome to Commondale. Thieves and smugglers are about in the night seeking payment, but the master of the house is missing. Folklore and superstition still lingers in the moorland as the country travels through enlightenment. This is North Yorkshire of the late 1700s and Hobart Hurst's four children are growing up and starting their adult lives. From the moorland village full of traditions and farming, they move out across the county of Yorkshire, to the coast and Whitby where the whalers and fishermen live and the women manage the day-to-day; and inland to the towns and cities where the aristocracy and polite society thrive. Delve into the history of the North Yorkshire Moors, and the lives of four very different siblings from the house of the Hob.