Flora is a 20-year-old London socialite who possesses an expensive education but no marketable skills. Left with a meager income after her parents' deaths, she is highly pragmatic and values tidiness above all else. Armed with the common-sense philosophies of her favorite author, Abbé Fausse-Maigre, she decides to move to Cold Comfort Farm and make it her mission to organize her eccentric relatives.

Aunt Ada is the elderly matriarch of the Starkadder family who rarely leaves her upstairs room. She maintains a psychological grip on the farm by constantly referencing a trauma she experienced at age two when she saw "something nasty in the woodshed." She controls the family finances and enforces strict adherence to gloomy traditions, effectively preventing anyone from experiencing the outside world.

Seth is the younger son of Amos and Judith Starkadder. He possesses matinee-idol looks that make him a target of obsession for the women in his family. Rather than work on the farm, he spends his time womanizing and dreaming about the cinema. His striking appearance belies a passive acceptance of his mother and grandmother's suffocating adoration.

Elfine is the 17-year-old daughter of Amos and Judith. Flighty and eccentric, she prefers to roam the Downs reading poetry rather than engaging with her gloomy family. She harbors a deep infatuation with a local gentleman, though her grandmother has already promised her hand in marriage to a cousin.

Judith is the middle-aged wife of Amos and mother to Reuben, Seth, and Elfine. She is intensely melancholic and harbors an unnerving, obsessive devotion to her son Seth, maintaining a shrine of his photographs in her room. She feels a mysterious obligation to Flora due to an unspoken grievance involving Flora's father.

Amos is the eldest male Starkadder and Judith's husband. Though he manages Cold Comfort Farm, his true passion is preaching furious fire-and-brimstone sermons to a local religious sect known as the Church of the Quivering Brethren. He holds a deep contempt for secular pleasures and views Flora's modern habits with extreme suspicion.

Reuben is the eldest child of Amos and Judith. Unlike his siblings, he is fiercely devoted to the physical labor and management of Cold Comfort Farm. He views Flora's arrival with intense paranoia, suspecting she intends to steal the farmstead that he considers his rightful inheritance.

Adam is an elderly, superstitious servant who has lived at Cold Comfort Farm his entire life. He is intensely committed to the old, inefficient ways of doing things, such as washing dishes with a stick. He prefers the company of his four peculiarly named cows over humans but holds a special fondness for young Elfine.

Charles is Flora's handsome, wealthy cousin who lives comfortably in the city with his mother. He represents the secure, affluent London life that Flora temporarily leaves behind in order to pursue her tidying mission in Sussex.

Mrs. Smiling is a rich widow and a good friend to Flora. She offers practical advice and hospitality to Flora in the city before the young woman sets off for Sussex.

Meriam is a young maid working at Cold Comfort Farm. She frequently falls pregnant by Seth Starkadder, accepting her situation with fatalistic resignation until Flora introduces her to the concept of birth control.

Mrs. Beetle is Meriam's mother and an occasional worker at the farm. Unlike the Starkadders, she is highly rational and unsentimental, making pragmatic, long-term plans for her many illegitimate grandchildren.

Mr. Meyerburg, whom Flora internally dubs "Mr. Mybug," is an intellectual writer from London. He is obnoxious and highly self-important, dedicating his time to a spurious theory that Branwell Brontë wrote his sisters' famous novels. He frequently attempts to flirt with Flora using pretentious academic posturing.

Richard is a respectable, ordinary country squire who lives on a neighboring estate. He is the oblivious object of Elfine's intense romantic fantasies.

Urk is a gloomy Starkadder cousin who lives at the farm. He operates under the belief that Aunt Ada promised him Elfine as a bride on the day the girl was born, making him highly territorial regarding her future.