Penelope Alice Wilton, OBE (born 3 June 1946) is an English actress. She starred with Richard Briers in the BBC situation comedy Ever Decreasing Circles.

She is also known for playing the character "Isobel Crawley" in the period drama Downton Abbey, "Ruth" in the film Calendar Girls, and "Homily" in the films The Borrowers and The Return of the Borrowers.

She has twice won the Critics' Circle Theatre Award.

Biography

Between 1975 and 1984, Wilton was married to the actor Daniel Massey. They had a daughter, Alice, born in 1977. Before this, she had a stillborn son born very premature. She has remarked that this was one of the saddest things in her life. In 1991 Wilton married Sir Ian Holm (in 1998, after he was knighted, she became Lady Holm) and they appeared together as Pod and Homily in the BBC's 1993 adaptation of The Borrowers. They were divorced in 2001.

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