Yorkshire TV show All Creatures Great and Small to premiere on American PBS Masterpiece channel

The first series of the wholesome hit - Channel 5's highest-rated drama commission ever - will air on the PBS's Masterpiece in America from Sunday this week.

In the UK, the series reached a consolidated audience of 4.7 million viewers with an additional million tuning in for the Sunday repeats and has already been picked up for a second series.

The show is based on the books of James Alfred Wight, a veterinary surgeon who graduated from Glasgow Veterinary College at the age of 23 and headed to a practice in Thirsk in 1940 where he fell in love with the Dales and the woman he would marry, Joan Danbury.

Wight later wrote stories based on his own adventures as a young country vet, under the pen name James Herriot.

First published in 1970, the books chronicled the heartwarming and humorous adventures of a young country vet and introduced readers to his unconventional mentor and the cast of farmers and townsfolk who lived and worked in the Yorkshire Dales in the 1930s.

Dales locations such as Grassington were transformed to create the fictional world of Darrowby for the new series, which follows previous small screen and film adaptations originally aired on the BBC.

Leeds-based Screen Yorkshire has partly funded the production, while PBS channel Masterpiece in the US has co-produced.

The series starred Dame Diana Rigg as Mrs Pumphrey, the eccentric owner of dog Tricki Woo, in one of her final screen roles before her death aged 82 last year.