Well unlike "Larkrise to Candleford," the currently showing "Downton Abbey" is also being shown in the US, not just the UK, and according to today's New York Times is a phenomenon: If You’re Mad for ‘Downton,’ Publishers Have Reading List:
The British melodrama “Downton Abbey” is already the darling of American public television. Now it has become a marketing tool for booksellers and publishers hoping to tap into the passion of the show’s audience.
Publishers are convinced that viewers who obsessively tune in to follow the war-torn travails of an aristocratic family and its meddling but loyal servants are also literary types, likely to devour books on subjects the series touches.
And as I predicted yesterday, I did identify another actor in Downton who appeared on "Larkrise to Candleford" - Samantha Bond, who played a sugar momma on Larkrise plays the sister of the leading character Lord Grantham. That didn't take long.