GOODRAMGATE and Castlegate were both closed to traffic today due to filming on a new ITV drama starring Downton Abbey actress Joanne Froggatt.

Filming took place at several locations including in the churchyard of the Holy Trinity Church on Goodramgate.

The shoot follows the filming that took place earlier this week in Rowntree Park.

The drama is entitled ‘Dark Angel’, and it is based on the true story of the Victorian poisoner Mary Ann Cotton. Cotton was a serial killer from the North East whose discreet methods left no visible scars, allowing her tally of victims to mount unsuspected by a Victorian society unable to believe a woman capable of such crimes.

The role of Cotton is being played by award-winning North Yorkshire actress Joanne, who plays lady's maid Anna in Downton and hails from Whitby. The programme will reunite her with Downton director Brian Percival.

Cotton’s victims may have totalled as many as 21, including eleven of her thirteen children. She chiefly used arsenic poisoning, which caused severe gastric pain and rapid decline.

Mary Ann Cotton was hanged at Durham County Gaol in March 1873. After the hanging, a dark nursery rhyme told the story. "Mary Ann Cotton, she's dead and forgotten/ Lying in bed with her bones all rotten /Sing, sing, what can I sing? /Mary Ann Cotton, tied up with string."

ITV’s controller of drama Victoria Fea, who commissioned the show, said it was “an extraordinary and chilling true story”.

Dark Angel also features Alun Armstrong (New Tricks, Penny Dreadful), Jonas Armstrong (Edge of Tomorrow, Robin Hood), Laura Morgan (Torchwood, Suspicions of Mr Whicher), Sam Hoare (Life in Squares) Emma Fielding (Arthur & George, DCI Banks) and Penny Layden (Call the Midwife).

The drama is supported by Screen Yorkshire’s Yorkshire Content Fund, and produced by World Productions.

As well as York, filming on the production is taking place in County Durham.