OSCAR winner Julian Fellowes is turning the clock back for a major new Upstairs Downstairs-style period drama.

The actor and writer has penned the series, called Downton Abbey, starring such actors as Dame Maggie Smith and Hugh Bonneville.

Mr Fellowes, who lives in West Stafford, near Dorchester, brings the story to the small screen after the success of Gosford Park and the Young Victoria.

Downton Abbey traces the lives of the Crawley family and their servants in a great country house in the face of the changing times of 1912.

Mr Fellowes, who won an Oscar in 2001 for Best Original Screenplay for Gosford Park, said: “In a sense I have gone into that world with Gosford Park.

“There was also an Alan Ackybourn play which has been quite inspirational.

“It features different people all on the same stage leading different lives, and shows how their lives plait into each other.”

Downton Abbey explores the relationships between the family and servants under the same roof.

It also follows their different lives and expectations in the face of the upheavals of the Edwardian age.

Mr Fellowes said: “Downton Abbey is not seen from the family’s point of view or from the servants’ point of view.

“It is an even perspective from all of their points of view. They are all principal characters.”

The costume drama will star Dame Maggie Smith as Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham, Hugh Bonneville as Robert, Earl of Grantham, and Elizabeth McGovern as Robert’s wife, Cora, Countess of Grantham.

The cast also includes Penelope Wilton, Dan Stevens, Michelle Dockery, Jim Carter, Phyllis Logan, Lesley Nicol, Siobhan Finneran, Rob James Collier, Joanne Froggatt and Rose Leslie.

Mr Fellowes has written and created the drama and is also a producer. It is being filmed this spring by Carnival Productions at Highclere Castle in Berkshire and at Ealing Studios in London.

It is likely to be screen on ITV1 in October with a 90-minutes first episode followed by six-hour long episodes.

Mr Fellowes’s Gosford Park was acclaimed for its portrayal of the lives and interaction of servants and their masters in a great house.

His Young Victoria film won the Oscar for Best Costume Design earlier this month.

The film, written by Mr Fellowes, was shot at Athelhampton House and received its premiere at the Electric Palace in Bridport in aid of the Weldmar Hospicecare Trust.

Mr Fellowes worked with Dame Maggie Smith in Gosford Park and when she starred in the children’s fantasy From Time to Time.

Mr Fellowes, who adapted the story from Lucy Bonnet’s series of books The Children of Green Knowe, chose Athelhampton House for the production.