A crumbling 19th century wheelwright and blacksmith’s workshop in the Midlands has had its future secured after winning a £1million Heritage Lottery Fund grant on BBC Two’s Restoration Village show.

Chedham’s Yard at Wellesbourne in Warwickshire topped the poll of eight finalists from around the UK, which also included a Methodist chapel, a Georgian watermill and slate quarry workshops.

This latest incarnation of the popular TV series called on the public to help save precious buildings that have previously been historically important to a local rural community.

In the programme on the Midlands & East Anglia, presenter Griff Rhys Jones was filmed driving a top specification John Deere self-propelled forage harvester, illustrating the advances made in agricultural mechanisation since the 19th century, when it would take four men with scythes about a week to cut the same area that a forager can now manage in just one and a half hours.

Chedham’s Yard is close to two famous local landmarks, the Stag’s Head pub and a chestnut tree.

It was here in 1872 that Joseph Arch, a Methodist lay preacher and farm worker from nearby Barford, addressed a rally of agricultural labourers as part of his campaign to improve their working conditions.

This meeting led to the foundation that same year, in Leamington Spa, of the National Agricultural Labourers’ Union, with Joseph Arch elected as its first full-time president.

Within two years the union had over 86,000 members, over one-tenth of the farm workforce in Britain. In the 1885 general election, Joseph Arch was elected as the Liberal Party MP for north-west Norfolk – the first agricultural labourer to be a member of the House of Commons.

The photograph shows Griff Rhys Jones and crew during filming for BBC Two’s Restoration Village programme.

The 570hp John Deere 7700 self-propelled forage harvester is equipped with satellite navigation, automatic moisture sensing and yield monitoring and new ProDrive hydrostatic transmission.

It was arranged by John Deere after Midlands dealer Sharmans Agricultural was asked by the TV production company Endemol if it could film a modern piece of farm machinery for the programme.