Downton fans, get next September in your diary as that’s when the new film will be released in cinemas.

One of the shows stars, Phyllis Logan has said filming for the new Downton Abbey movie has almost finished.

The big-screen adaptation of the hit ITV period drama was confirmed in July, with the original principal cast returning to reprise their roles.

Phyllis played housekeeper Mrs Hughes in Downton Abbey’s original run from 2010 until 2015, and she has told of her joy at returning to the set with her co-stars.

She told ITV’s Loose Women she has “wrapped” her part but filming is still going “for a few more days”.

Logan, 62, said: “The corset I could have done without, but it was so lovely hooking up with all the old gang. It really was.

“We had sort of seen each other, quite a few of us, over the years. We try to have a Downton Abbey reunion maybe every November, December time, we try, and whoever can come, comes. So we had seen each other here and there.

“But to be back on the set, to be up there at the castle, it was just amazing.”

Phyllis Logan

She said the storyline continues a “couple of years” after Downton Abbey left off in the 2015 Christmas special, the final episode.

Logan also joked that the character Matthew Crawley, who was played by Dan Stevens but died in the third series, would return as the “ghost of Christmas past”.

The film stars the original principal cast including Hugh Bonneville, Joanne Froggatt, Laura Carmichael, Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle, Michelle Dockery, Kevin Doyle, Matthew Goode, Penelope Wilton and Dame Maggie Smith.

The programme’s creator Julian Fellowes wrote the screenplay and is also co-producing the feature.

The hit TV series followed the lives of the Crawley family and the servants who worked for them at the turn of the 20th century in an Edwardian English country home.

Over six series, it became the most nominated non-US television show in the history of the Emmys.

The Downton Abbey film will premiere in September next year.

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