Meridian Downton Abbey

The hit TV show based at Hampshire's Highclere Castle will return to our screens this weekend. ITV News Meridian goes behind the scenes of the fourth season of Downton Abbey. Divya Kohli talks to the stars of the show.

Video. The fourth series of Downton Abbey starts this weekend and - as always - Highclere Castle in Hampshire will provide a stunning setting for the show. Viewers were left shocked after Matthew Crawley's death in last year's Christmas Special.

It's one of the most popular period dramas of all time. ITV's Downton Abbey is essential viewing for millions of people. It is, of course, filmed in the South.

And it's in Oxfordshire - at Bampton - where the Downton fashions of yesteryear are on display at a special exhibition at the arts centre. Heather Edwards has been along to see it.

She spoke to Costume Curator Debbie Greenwell and Mike Jones from West Ox Arts.

As fans eagerly await series four, costumes from ITV's hit show Downton Abbey are now on show in Oxfordshire.

The West Ox Arts gallery in Bampton is showing ten assorted costumes from the drama. They have been loaned to the gallery by the programme's makers Carnival Films to thank the village for having hosted film crew in all the outside scenes in the series.

West Ox Arts have say, "It is extremely exciting that we are able to show these wonderful costumes to the public for the first time. We are looking forward to welcoming people from all over the world to our village."

It seems George is becoming a popular name for aristocratic babies. After the Duchess of Cambridge gave birth earlier this week, the makers of ITV hit show Downton Abbey - filmed at Highclere Castle in Hampshire - have revealed Lady Mary Crawley's son is also called George.

But is seems Downton producers were first to pick the name as filming started months ago. The fictional baby George was apparently named after King George V.

Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG award winner Paul Giamatti (John Adams, Sideways, Barney’s Version, Cinderella Man) has joined the cast of the Emmy and Golden Globe award-winning drama, Downton Abbey.

Giamatti will play Cora’s maverick, playboy brother Harold in the Christmas episode and joins new cast members Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Tom Cullen, Julian Ovenden, Nigel Harman, Joanna David and Gary Carr who are all set to star in the fourth series.

As well as filming an eight-part fourth series, Downton Abbey will return at Christmas 2013 with another feature length episode. The new series will see the return of Shirley MacLaine as Martha Levinson alongside series regulars Hugh Bonneville, Maggie Smith, Michelle Dockery and Jim Carter.

The creator of Downton Abbey, which was filmed at Highclere Castle near Newbury, has said he found it hard to write Dan Stevens' character out of the series.

After the actor announced he was leaving, Julian Fellowes admitted to The Hollywood Reporter that the only way to write him out was to kill him off.

Executive producer Gareth Neamne said: "We were all agreed that the only way we could break Mary and Matthew apart was for one to die. There really was on alternative."

Fellowes added: "We couldn't have three years of them being in love and suddenly him taking against her and nipping off to Japan. That wasn't a workable scenario."

Stevens' insisted he had no say in the matter and told the Radio Times: "We didn't see that script until the very last minute, so we didn't know exactly how they were going to do it."