‘Abbey’ road

Newbury, ENGLAND — “Get ready,” says the cab driver as he aims his black taxi down a crushed gravel road that winds through a rolling 1,000-acre estate in County Hampshire, England. “It’s right around the bend. Get ready.”

Then, suddenly, there it is: Highclere Castle, a huge, gold Jacobethan hulk, a breathtaking 17th-century mansion that is one of the stars of “Downton Abbey,” the PBS period drama that has emerged as the network’s biggest success in decades. And if Highclere’s majestic, Italianate spires that rise into the cloudless sky aren’t thrilling enough, the heavy wooden front doors suddenly creak open and dispatch the show’s first aristocrat: the legendary Dame Maggie Smith who plays Violet, the imperious dowager countess of Grantham, a role which won her a Best Supporting Actress Emmy last year. Though wrapped in a fluffy between-takes bathrobe, with a pale blue hair net holding her complicated gray upsweep in place, Smith, 77, still cuts an imposing figure as she heads over to a trailer, her jaw tilted upward, her blue eyes seeing everything.

In its first season, “Downton Abbey” took the world by storm. The series has been sold in 200 territories; in our country, 12 million viewers savored every morsel of the Edwardian soap about a beguiling group of servants and their upper-crust masters. Created by Julian Fellowes, who won an Oscar for writing “Gosford Park,” his “Upstairs, Downstairs”-style mystery, it swept the Emmy Awards in September, walking off with six, and has been nominated for a clutch of Golden Globes.

The show’s roaring success — it was recently cited in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest critical review ratings of a TV series ever — can partly be attributed to Fellowes’ ability to make this prosperous world feel real. He has a lot of help from Highclere itself, where several rooms lend enchantment to an already enthralling mix of period costumes, restrained manners and sly humor.

Most of the sideboards, chairs and light fixtures inside Highclere’s mighty walls aren’t props. They’re antiques owned by the Carnarvons, whose family has inhabited the grounds since 1672, and who are Fellowes’ friends. When a Grantham retreats to the library for a quiet moment, the 6,000 books on the surrounding shelves are the Carnarvons’ property. The huge equestrian portrait that hovers behind the Earl of Grantham during dinner scenes? That’s an original, circa 1635, rendering of King Charles 1 on horseback by Flemish court painter, Sir Anthony van Dyck.

When this reporter distractedly lay a tape recorder down on a glossily polished piece of furniture, the lissome Lady Carnarvon, an on-set presence who serves as one-part Highclere historian, one-part security guard for her family’s collectible furnishings, politely asked in a tinkly voice, “Is it okay if we keep that off the table?”

Sitting on a plastic folding chair in the shade of the castle, Hugh Bonneville, who plays humanistic patriarch Robert, the Earl of Grantham, offers that the show’s popularity can be attributed to Fellowes’ depiction of a community that is about to fade into history.

“In the first series one of the major dramatic points was the loss of a cuff link or something,” says Bonneville, 48. In full military dress — crisp jodphurs, medal-festooned jacket and high boots — the barrel-chested actor looks every inch the Earl.

“It’s not exactly ‘24.’ [Julian] is showing people at work and at play,” Bonneville says. “He’s looking at the minutiae of relationships. That, he explores even more in the second [season].”

The first season covered the two years leading up to World War I; the family learned that Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens), a third cousin once removed, was Highclere’s new heir and a marriage with Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery) was suggested, then dismissed. When season two begins it’s the fall of 1916 and the war is in full eruption. Matthew is off fighting and a section of “Downton Abbey” has been grandly offered up by the Granthams to be converted into a convalescent hospital for officers, as it was in reality.

Scenes featuring the Crawleys are filmed in select rooms at Highclere. Scenes with the servants are filmed at Ealing Studios in London. Even though the locations are not near each other, the tension between upstairs and downstairs is ever-present, and so is the romance.

This season, Lady Mary regrets her rejection of Matthew when he returns to Downton from London with a wisp of a fiancée named Lavinia (Zoe Boyle). The Granthams’ eldest and most enigmatic daughter realizes she still has feelings for him — although she’d only confide this to one person, the head housemaid, Anna.

“Lady Mary completely trusts Anna,” says Joanne Froggatt. As Anna, she is often found gazing lovingly at the man she intends to marry: Lord Grantham’s valet, Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle). Why can Anna and her swain engage in heartfelt conversations while Lady Mary must conceal her true emotions?

“There are such constraints in the politeness in the way of life,” says Froggatt, 32. “Anna and Bates can be a bit more intimate and open. Whereas it takes Matthew and Mary a little bit longer to get to the reality of what’s happening between them. [Their] problems are a bit more political because there are consequences to either getting together or not. Anna and Bates’ problems are possibly more simplified. They’re about the emotional side of things.”

The sexily stoic Coyle has emerged as the show’s unlikely hunk. Executive producer Gareth Neame says that actress Jamie Lee Curtis surprised him during a breakfast meeting by revealing that Bates was her favorite character.

“She’s fanatical about Mr. Bates,” says Neame, 40. “There’s something about him that has really touched a nerve. Women tell me, ‘I just want to give him a hug.’ ”

But not all is tea and scones at “Downton Abbey.” The show has its snakes in the rolling hills. Conniving footman Thomas Barrow (Rob James-Collier) and Lady Grantham’s diabolical maid, Miss O’Brien (Siobhan Finneran) spread poison throughout the bedrooms, living rooms and parlors.

One of the best parts about O’Brien is not just that she is unrepentantly mean but how she exposes the inability of the Granthams — especially Cora (Elizabeth McGovern), the Earl’s American wife — to view the help as real people.

“She thinks of O’Brien as her soul mate — she thinks she’s the kindest,” says McGovern about a character who last season planted a bar of soap next to Cora’s bathtub and caused her to have a miscarriage.

Waiting to film a drawing room scene, the 50-year-old actress wears a high-waisted gray skirt, a cream-colored blouse and the strained smile of a woman who has been strapped into an old-time corset.

In a few minutes she’ll join Smith, Bonneville and Jim Carter, who plays the bushy-browed butler, Mr. Carson, in an outdoor holding area comprised of white folding chairs just outside the Highclere Castle doors. Before she departs, McGovern offers up a theory to “Downton”’s hypnotic pull:

“There’s an emotional truth to the way all the characters operate with one another and within the mix,” she says. “I like to think that’s why it’s striking a chord with audiences.”

THE CAST

UPSTAIRS

The Crawleys:

Violet, the Dowager Countess of Grantham (Maggie Smith)

Robert, the Earl of Grantham (Hugh Bonneville)

Cora, the Countess of Grantham (Elizabeth McGovern)

Lady Mary Crawley (Michelle Dockery)

Lady Edith Crawley(Laura Carmichael)

Lady Sybil Crawley (Jessica Brown-Findlay)

Isobel Crawley (Penelope Wilton)

Matthew Crawley (Dan Stevens)

DOWNSTAIRS

Carson, the butler (Jim Carson) and Mrs. Hughes, the head housekeeper (Phyllis Logan).

John Bates (Brendan Coyle) and Sarah O’Brien (Siobhan Finneran):

Bates and O’Brien are responsible for the upkeep of the wardrobe for Lord and Lady Grantham, respectively. As such, only they have access to their bedrooms and while the Lord and Lady are present.

Anna (Joanne Froggatt), Ethel (Amy Nuttall) and Gwen (Rose Leslie):

They are the housemaids. Only when the bedrooms are empty do they enter to change the linens. They light fires before the family comes down for breakfast.

Mrs. Patmore, the cook (Lesley Nicol).

Daisy, the kitchen maid (Sophie McShera).

Thomas Barrow, the first footman (Rob James-Collier).

William Mason, second footman (Thomas Howes).

Tom Branson, chauffeur (Allen Leech).

‘Downton’ rules

The hierarchical world such as the fabulously intricate one portrayed in “Downton Abbey” appeals to the contemporary viewer because it presents such a romantic contrast to our own chaotic one, with its increasing lack of boundaries. Anyone who’s been to a movie theater lately can tell you how people behave toward each other: they talk on their cell phones, they feverishly text, they don’t watch the movie. Our world may have all the advantages technology can offer, but “Downton Abbey” captures something we have lost: propriety.

“Downton Abbey” employs a historical adviser (and etiquette expert), Alistair Bruce OBE, Queen’s herald, Territory Army colonel and equerry — or officer of the royal household who takes care of the horses — to Prince Edward, to keep things properly Edwardian. Here are some of his helpful hints, as written by Jessica Fellowes, daughter of creator Julian Fellowes, in “The World of Downton Abbey” (St. Martin’s Press).

—Robert Rorke

Breakfast: Lord Granthan and his daughters arrive in the dining room at 9 a.m. As a married woman, Lady Grantham enjoys the privilege of having breakfast in bed.

Dinner: Lord and Lady Grantham would never be seated at opposite ends of the table. They would sit in the middle, on either side of each other, a better position to interact with guests and other family members. Lord Grantham’s mother, Violet, sits on his right, as the most important woman in the room. The butler pours the wine. The footmen, wearing white gloves, serve the food, working their way clockwise around the table from Lord Grantham’s right, men and women alternately.

Dress code for men: White tie was standard dress for dinners in the Edwardian era. The bow tie should be hand-tied. A white, winged collar (sometimes detachable from the shirt itself) should adorn the top of the dress shirt, which should be fastened with studs. The black tailcoat is double-breasted, never buttoned and shows a hint of the white waistcoat underneath. The waistcoat is white and buttoned. Trousers are black and tapered with two pieces of braid running down the side of each leg. They should be held in place with braces, not a belt. Shoes are patent black leather oxfords.

Dress code for women: Dresses should be sweeping (to the floor), but hair should not be. White gloves should be worn at all times, except when dining.

Parties: Dinner menus are written in French. If visitors arrive without a valet or lady’s maid of their own, a footman or housemaid is assigned to them. The chauffeur picks everyone up at the train station and they are greeted at the door by Lord and Lady Grantham and their daughters, Carson and his footmen, William and Thomas, who take the luggage.