Julian Fellowes' 'Downton Abbey' Follow Up 'Belgravia' Announces Cast

While fans of Downton Abbey breathlessly wait for September when the beloved series arrives in theaters for one last adventure, creator Julian Fellowes is hard at work on following his big screen success with a new TV series. He's got two in the works, actually - one in the U.K. and one stateside. The U.S. series, The Gilded Age, is a sort of but not really Downton prequel, set in New York in the 1880s, at a time when new monied heiresses (like Lady Cora) were prepped and shipped to London to marry cash-strapped aristocrats with old world peerage titles. However, while that show is still bubbling in development, Fellowes' other series, over in the U.K., is full steam ahead.

Entitled Belgravia, the series, a co-production between ITV and American cable outlet Epix, is based on the novel of the same name that Lord Fellowes wrote back in 2016. This story goes further back in time than his other properties, with the story beginning in 1815, though the bulk of the action happens 25 years later in 1840, as the nouveau riche of the industrial era find themselves entering the social circles of the aristocracy. Set in the newly chic area of London called Belgravia (which is still considered one of the most affluent neighborhoods of the city today), the story focuses on the Trenchard family. The Trenchards are both at the fateful party thrown by the Duke of Richmond in 1815 in Brussels for the Duke of Wellington the day before the battle of Waterloo, and part of the new and happening social scene of the 1840s at the dawn of the Victorian era.