ITV1 commissions Julian Fellowes factual series

Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes is to present a new factual series about England’s great houses for ITV.

The two-part series entitled Julian Fellowes’s Historical Houses will take the audience on a journey through the extraordinary history, upstairs and downstairs, of his favourite great houses of England. Fellowes will provide a fascinating insight into the detail behind these incredible houses and the people who lived and worked there.

“The great houses of Britain have for centuries been the guardians of much of our history, not just of the families who built and lived in them, but of the people who worked there, of the local area, of all of us. Where they have remained in the hands of the original families, the archives are rich in their stories and I have been on the trail of just a few of these,” said Fellowes.

Fellowes plays detective, unearthing untold stories by digging into the houses rich history and even uncovering secrets hidden in century old paintings. The houses have their heroes and villains. There are stories of people who fortune smiled upon, and less fortunate souls who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. Descendants of the previous inhabitants of the house and those living and working there today will hear about those who went before them.

“There could not be anyone better than Lord Fellowes to make these films, he brings history to life in the most extraordinary and engaging way. Inevitably, he finds that fact is often even stranger than fiction,” says Alan Brown, Executive Producer

Julian Fellowes’s Historical Houses is a Chocolate Media production for ITV.