DOWNTON Abbey devotees are set to flock to Bury after 10 costumes used in the show went on display.

The Fusilier Museum is playing host to the iconic items for a limited time, as part of its Downton: A Wartime Christmas display.

The outfits staged in a Christmas dinner theme include those used by Dowager Countess of Grantham, played by Maggie Smith, and Matthew Crawley, portrayed by Dan Stevens.

The costumes have been placed in the museum's majestic Gallipoli Room, which dates back to Victorian times.

Even without the dresses and suits, visitors to the exhibition are sure to be transformed into the world of the period drama with its grand facade.

The room is not usually open to the public, and it also features some fine oil paintings and items of regimental silver, some of which date back to the 1880s and are rarely on show.

The exhibition opened today and runs until December 23.

The sixth and final series of Downton Abbey finished in October, and fans are eagerly awaiting the final episode, which will air on Christmas Day.

Sarah Stevenson, collections manager at the museum, said that the period drama exhibition also fitted in well with the museum's current commemorations marking 100 years since the Gallipoli landings, when the Lancashire Fusiliers famously earned six VCs before breakfast.

She said: "It is such a beautiful room, it is nice to be able to open it up to people.

"We have some magnificent oil paintings and about 10 per cent of our regimental silver on show, which also is rarely seen.

"Now the series has finished and everyone is waiting for the Christmas special, it is the perfect time and we hope that it will attract people in."

The TV show has several links to Bury, with Downton creator Julian Fellowes's wife Lady Emma Kitchener being a relative of Bury Grammar School Girls' first headmistress.

Mr Fellows came back to the school in 2013 to open its new £2 million arts centre.

In the show, Mrs Beryl Patmore, played by Lesley Nicol, finds out that her nephew Archibald Philpott, was shot for cowardice during World War One but served in the Bury based Lancashire Fusiliers.

In addition, Lady Sibyl Crawley, played by Jessica Brown Findlay, joined the voluntary aid detachment as a nurse in the show to help care for wounded soldiers, which many women in Bury also did during the war.

All of the costumes have been loaned to the museum by Cosprop, which provides outfits to TV, theatre and film productions, and Gini Wilde, the museum's marketing manager, said the inspiration for the exhibition came by chance.

She said: "We were always going to do a Christmas theme in this room, but I saw the costumes from Downton there and I thought: 'We can do this!'

"I didn't think for one minute that we would get them though, and to get 10 here is great and will hopefully bring a lot of people through our doors, in what is usually a quiet time for museums.

"It feeds into the period features of the room very well."

Admission to the exhibition costs £4.95 for adults and £3.95 for concessions.

The full list of costumes on display, from left to right in the Gallipoli room:

• Cora, Countess of Grantham, played by Elizabeth McGovern

• Lady Edith Crawley, played by Laura Carmichael

• Lady Sibyl Crawley, played by Jessica Brown Findlay

• Lady Mary Crawley, played by Michelle Dockery

• Violet, The Dowager Countess of Grantham, played by Maggie Smith

• Lavinia Swire, played by Zoe Boyle

• Matthew Crawley, played by Dan Stevens

• Mrs Hughes, played by Phyllis Logan

• Mrs Patmore, played by Lesley Nicol

• Mr Carson, played by Jim Carter