Downton Abbey: A New Era sees Crawleys and staff thrown back 100 million years into the past

A new Downton Abbey: A New Era trailer has revealed further details of the plot of the sequel which sees the Crawleys and their servants flung back 100 million years into the past after Lady Mary finds a time portal under her bed and pokes it with a stick.

The Crawleys and their staff then wake up in Cretaceous Yorkshire. Unruffled by the strange events, the quick-thinking Earl of Grantham swings into action and orders Bates and the other staff to build a drinks cabinet, a rudimentary fainting couch for Lucy, shelter for the family, and a basic staff quarters in a swamp.

The trailer then goes on to reveal Bates hiding up a tree from velociraptors who appear to be searching for him, plucky cook Mrs Patmore using a rolling pin to battle a Tyrannosaurus Rex who’s trying to steal an elegant centre-piece Roast Pork she’s prepared for the Crawleys, and the Earl of Grantham, calmly enjoying a glass of sherry as a heard of Brachiosaurs stampede across his future property.

Creator Julian Fellowes explained his decision to set Downton Abbey: A New Era in the Cretaceous era.

“Well, the Downton Abbey TV show lasted several hundred years and covered every possible aspect of domestic life in Yorkshire in the early part of the last century,” he explained.

“So, sending them back to the past to battle dinosaurs was one of the few plotlines we’d never done.”

If Downton Abbey: A New Era is the success many predict, then a third film is already envisioned in which the Crawleys must battle an unstoppable cyborg from the future who has been sent back in time to kill Lady Mary to stop her fathering the man whose butler will lead the resistance against humanity’s future robot overlords.