Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes plans to end the period drama while it is still popular with viewers, actress Laura Carmichael has suggested.

The ITV drama is currently enjoying its fifth series with Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Dame Maggie Smith back on screen.

Laura, 28, who stars as Lady Edith Crawley, told Radio Times that Fellowes did not want to run the show into the ground.

"I know it's his intention to write until the point that seems right [to stop]. It won't be on forever," she told the magazine.

But the actress then added: "I say that, what do I know? I don't know, I really don't know! But I don't think that's his ambition."

Earlier this year, the show's executive producer Gareth Neame said that Downton would continue after its current, fifth series.

Speculation arose when Julian remarked that he would not be able to continue writing Downton at the same time as working on his next project - The Gilded Age.

Laura also told the magazine that some aspects of playing Lady Mary's dowdy sibling only became clear after the drama first aired.

"It was really funny opening the newspaper and reading the reviews and going, 'Oh, I'm playing the ugly one' - I hadn't thought about that!," she said.

But she said that viewers often confused her with her character.

"People ask me to go horseriding and things. I have to say 'I'm not really posh, I don't own a horse, I don't know how to do it'."

She added: "I've watched people talk to Michelle [Dockery] like she's the queen - she's Lady Mary. And with Jim [Carter, who plays Carson, the butler] they're more matey. It's weird."

Laura admitted that she was fed up with wearing period costume, " because you keep having to be fiddled with and sewn in.

"They move your necklace and sew it into the neckline or the hem while you're carrying on a conversation," she said.

"There was this annoying moment in the second series where our corsets were attached to our stockings, which was a nightmare. The undergarments are a lot better for us now."