Passionate fans of the TV series will be well aware that a cinema sequel to Downton Abbey which focuses on the life of an aristocratic family, the Crawleys, and their staff, has recently been released. The TV series spanned the period of great change – the war, female emancipation movements, growth of the middle classes – between 15 April 1912, which marked the sinking of the Titanic, and 1926, change that inevitably affects all their lives. The film follows on, set in 1927 it opens with a letter announcing that King George V, the Queen and their retinue will be travelling to Yorkshire and will stay at Downton Abbey for a day and a night.
Many tourists and those desirous of travelling through time to the early 1900s have been inspired by the locations featured in the series to search for the fictitious estate of Downton Abbey in Yorkshire, although it is really Highclere Castle in Hampshire. Scenes in Downton Village and the exterior of Crawley House were filmed in the picturesque village of Bampton, Oxfordshire, using St. Mary’s Church in particular and the library which served as the hospital entrance. Mr Carson’s cottage can be found in Lacock, Wiltshire, a village of great history and tradition owned by the National Trust. The Beamish Open Air Museum in the county of Durham, a living museum that recounts the life, history and traditions of North West England in the 1800s and 1900s, was used as the background for many scenes in both the series and the film.