Fellowes: Mary would open Downton to public
THE final season of Downton Abbey may have suggested the beginning of the end for the aristocratic Crawley family.
But the show’s creator Julian Fellowes, who left the characters in 1925 at the close of the sixth series, believes the Crawleys would still own their Yorkshire pile today.
They would manage the bills by opening the grand old house to the paying public, he revealed. Speaking ahead of next month’s Emmy awards, for which Downton has ten nominations, Lord Fellowes said Lady Mary, played by Michelle Dockery, was ‘a hard worker, and she’s practical’.
‘She would probably have opened the house to the public in the 1960s… she’d have retreated to a wing, and maybe only occupied the whole house during the winters,’ he told US website Deadline.
The real location for Downton, Highclere Castle in Hampshire, is open to the public at certain times of year to help Lord and Lady Carnarvon finance its upkeep. Lord Fellowes added: ‘The Crawleys would still be there, just as the Carnarvons are today.’