Photo Flash: Filming on DOWNTON ABBEY's Season 4 Kicks Off at Matthew Crawley's Graveside

Images have been released of the cast of the historic drama Downton Abbey filming the show's fourth season on location in the tiny village of Bampton, Oxfordshire. From the photos, it appears that viewers worst fears have been realized, as the family gathers at the graveside of belovEd Matthew Crawley, tragically killed in a car accident on the day his wife Mary gave birth to their child. Below, get a first look at the highly anticipated fourth season of the show!

Once more the Downton is jumping ahead into the future, this time shifting six months on from where viewers left the Christmas Day special.

From the pen of award-winning writer Julian Fellowes, Downton Abbey, starring Maggie Smith, Hugh Bonneville and Elizabeth McGovern. As they face new challenges, the Crawley family and the servants who work for them remain inseparably interlinked. Throughout the great house new arrivals rattle the established hierarchies, and the lives of the inhabitants are as shaped by romance, ambition, desire, shocks and heartbreak as ever.

Photo credit: Joan Wakeham/Rex / Rex USA

Gravestone of Lady Sybil Branson

Matthew Crawleys Headstone

Dame Maggie Smith

Joanne Froggatt

Bernard Gallagher

David Robb

Penelope Wilton and David Robb

Brendan Coyle

Lily James

Dame Maggie Smith