VISITING John Dodd's farm is like stepping back in time. Tractors and other machinery are nowhere to be seen. He harnesses real horsepower to work his farm in Northumberland, relying on five giant Clydesdale horses to do everything - ploughing, sowing, haymaking and harvesting.

Horses still do all the work on his farm near Allendale as 71-year-old John employs the agricultural techniques of the 19th Century. Even in winter, a horse is used to pull a sledge to take hay to the sheep out in the snow.

"He's the embodiment of living history," says CBTV producer Charles Bowden, whose documentary series The Last Horsemen follows life on the farm run by John, daughter Frances and son-in-law David.

"There are one or two other farms that use horses for some things but John and David use only horses. In that sense they're the last in the country as far as I can tell," says Bowden. "Because they are good farmers and produce good stock they're not regarded as anything different to other farmers - apart from the fact they have horses instead of tractors."

The Last Horsemen, which begins on Tyne Tees on Tuesday, was filmed over three years during the changing seasons on the farm.

Bowden, a farmer's son himself, was an agricultural journalist when he first met John Dodd about 20 years ago. "Even then using horses was unusual," he recalls.

"I've always kept it in the back of my mind to go back and make a series of programmes about him. Then two years ago I met him at the funeral of an old man who'd been a horse ploughman in Northumberland.

"I suddenly realised that John Dodd, who was 69 then, was the last remaining horseman and that unless we made a record of his life and knowledge of horses, it might be lost forever. That's what really inspired me."

It would cost thousands of pounds to equip the farm with tractors and modern machinery these days. "We just couldn't afford it now. Not that we want to. We're happy with the way things are," says John.

Horses may be slow but he insists: "We still get the work done in season. We make 50 acres of hay and always manage to get it all in."

David Wise, who comes from the Washington area of County Durham, stepped back in time when he started work on the farm as he'd always driven tractors before.

He came from a family of doctors but was always interested in the land, taking a two-year course at the county agricultural college in Durham and then working on farms around Hexham. He met Frances through the local chapel, coming into contact with the horses when he started visiting her father's farm.

"Then I started courting Frances and I would help with the hay. Bit by bit I got used to working with horses," he says. "There's a tremendous amount to learn - the harness, the implements, how to yoke them up correctly, what to look for in case a horse goes lame. Some of it I learned from practical experience but a lot came from John, particularly the skill of breaking in a horse. He's broken in between 30 and 40 in his life and handed on a lot of his knowledge."

Eventually David and Frances married and now have a 12-year-old son, Richard, who's already saying he wants to follow in his father's footsteps. "It's his choice," says John. "The way farming is now we wouldn't push him into it but he's certainly interested in the horses at the moment."

David, who is in his 40s, says that working with horses is "just all round enjoyment - steadier pace, less noise, no tractors rattling away all the time. You're more open to the elements, closer to nature".

Although happy with horses, he's wary of the "gentle giant "clich, believing it's overused: "They can be gentle but if you've got a fiery horse, you've got to be careful. Handled with care, they're all right but they're not always as quiet as some people think."

He realises that using horses has virtually died out. He's proud of the fact and doesn't feel apart from the farming community because in the end the product is the same.

Their hobby is going to farm sales to buy horse-drawn implements. Unlike collectors and museum keepers they want to buy them, restore them and use them working the land.

His father-in-law has an almost spiritual attitude to the land. "I've always felt we were custodians of this farm," he says. "The land is more important than the people. We come and go, but it goes on forever.

"No one has the right to mistreat the land they farm. If I felt I was neglecting it by keeping horses, I'd stop tomorrow. But we manage to get all the jobs done in the right season, and as long as we can do that I don't feel the land is coming to any harm."

The Last Horsemen begins on Tyne Tees on Tuesday at 7.30pm