We have just returned from a fact-finding mission to Downtown Abbey and I can report it is just like it is on the telly, only with more wasps.

I don’t recall any of the characters from the programme ever running around the garden, like my wife did, clutching her scone and jam while being pursued by 20 of the stripey devils and uttering words you’d never hear coming out of the mouth of Lady Grantham.

But look on the bright side: at least we managed to make it home without being imprisoned for a crime we didn’t commit, which is more than you can say for a lot of characters in the programme.

There is no such place as Downtown Abbey really, of course. We were at Highclere Castle, where the ‘upstairs’ and exterior scenes are shot.

It’s near Newbury, so only half-an-hour away from Swindon in theory, but don’t think about popping down there for a lookaround – because you have to book it months in advance, on account of how popular it is with visitors.

A lot of people who watch Downton want to go and see where it is filmed, and there are a lot of people, all over the world, who watch it.

Women and Americans are especially keen on it, and a lot of our fellow visitors seemed to be both women and American.

I have to confess I have not been a great fan of the programme since the storylines got unnecessarily sensational and some of the characters began to lose their credibility.

I am especially thinking of the footman, Thomas, who invents a new kind of villainy or skullduggery in every single episode, yet never manages to get himself sacked.

I reckon he could cut off the heads of everybody in the place and stick them on poles, but you would still see him holding the door open for Maggie Smith the following Sunday.

Back at Highclere, as we shuffle along with the slow-moving throng, I ask my wife which scenes, if any, were filmed in each room we enter. But she can’t remember. This comes as a surprise because she is an avid watcher and dares me to even speak when it’s on, yet I, the casual watcher, easily recognise several of the rooms and recall scenes that were filmed there.

This proves my long-held belief that men and women see Sunday night costume dramas with different eyes, although that is probably true of most things in the world, to be honest.

Even more surprising than my wife’s poor observational skills is how little the people who run Highclere are seen to be cashing in on the Downton connection.

I don’t think anybody was kidding themselves that the crowds were there for the history and the paintings and the architecture, yet a lot of people seemed to be in Downton denial.

Apart from a few strategically placed laminated sheets telling you a bit about the filming, mainly identifying whose bedroom you were looking at, it was as if Downton hadn’t happened.

In the gift shop there were no Downton hairbrushes, nor Lady Grantham jam. Not even so much as a Carson keyring.

But there is an exhibition about the time when Highclere had an even greater claim to fame, thanks to an even bigger media event (for its time), which was the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by a previous owner of the place, the 5th Earl of Carnarvon, along with Howard Carter (no relation) in 1922.

The exhibition is absolutely fascinating, but the Tutankhamun tea cosies weren’t selling nearly as well as expected.