The end is finally in sight for the Crawley family following Thursday’s announcement that the upcoming sixth season of Downton Abbey will be the last.

But for the hit show’s creator, executive producer and sole writer Julian Fellowes, there won’t be much time to sit and reminisce, as he’ll be diving straight on with his long-awaited NBC project, The Gilded Age.

Having previously stated that he wouldn’t start work on the show — set among the upper echelons of society (where else?) in late 19th century New York — until he had completed Downton, with the latest news he has now admitted that he’s “started thinking about it.”

“But I do want to be off with the old love before I’m on with the new,” he tells The Hollywood Reporter.

“I think I’ve got enough latitude to be allowed that, but certainly The Gilded Age is looming large in my future,” he says.

“It’s a big challenge. There’s always an assumption that it’s impossible to make lightning strike twice in the same place. But I’m looking forward to it, and I think it’ll be quite different. There’s a certain coziness in the fact that ITV have really allowed [executive producers] Gareth [Neame] and Liz [Trubridge] and I just to make the show, and I’m sure working for an American network will prove a rather different experience.”

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