During 2014 the new series of Poldark 2015 was filmed for the BBC. Set in Cornwall in the 1700s, the TV series is set in Bodmin and used film locations across Cornwall, as well as filming in the South West of England for some scenes. 
- Charlestown, St Austell, Cornwall. Charlestown Harbour is used in a lot of films and there are often tall ships moored there. There’s the Charlestown Shipwreck Museum alongside the harbour.
- Wheal Owles Tin Mine, Penwith, near St Just becomes Wheal Leisure Mine in the Poldark series. This tin mine was huge in the mid 1850s and £10,,000 was spent on it in 1873 to cut two diagonal shafts out under the sea. In 1893 though it was the scene of a massive disaster, with 20 dead, when they cut through a wall into an adjacent flooded mine and the tunnels were flooded. The bodies of 19 men and a boy were never recovered.
- Constantine Bay, Padstow, Cornwall, is a long, sandy beach, about 10 miles north of Newquay, between Padstow and Newquay. Also in the area is St Constantine’s Well, a holy well and historic site, accessible by a public right of way on Trevose Golf Club’s golf course along the road from Constantine. Apart from public loos, this beach has no other services, great for a get away picnic!
- Pedn Vounder Beach, near Porthcurno, Penzance, is about 40 miles from Newquay. There’s no direct road access or car parking at Pedn Vounder, you have to either have a boat or walk along the South West Coastal Footpath to get to it. Due to its remoteness, it’s also an unofficial naturist beach, so be aware of that if you’re going to take the half a mile walk (which in itself isn’t a flat walk!)
- Levant Mine, Trewellard, St Just is a National Trust property, about 40 miles from Newquay If you are a member of the National Trust then entry is free, if you are not a member then it’s £3.50 for kids and £7 for adults or £17.50 for a family. There has been mining on the site since the year 200 AD. Levant Mine is another site where miners dug out under the sea by a whole mile! Address and satnav: Levant Mine, Trewellard, Pendeen, near St Just, Cornwall, TR19 7SX.
- Lizard Point, Landewednack, near Helston is about 40 miles from Newquay.
- Gunwalloe Church Cove on The Lizard near Helston is just over 30 miles from Newquay.
- Porthgwarra near Land’s End is just over 40 miles from Newquay. One intriguing feature of this beach are the tunnels cut through the cliffs, One, at the foot of the cove’s slipway, which was dug by tin miners from St Just to give farmers horse-and-cart access to the beach to collect seaweed to use as a fertiliser. The other tunnel leads towards the sea and until 20 years ago was the fishermen’s access to the tidal ‘hulleys’ built in the rocks, where they used to store shellfish before taking their catch to market once or twice a week
- Helston is about 25 miles from Newquay and is most well known for the annual Furry Dance, or Flora Dance, a day long festival on 8 May (or the Saturday before if 8 May falls on a Sunday or Monday). Helston is also well known for its very strong, locally brewed Spingo Ales, brewed at the Blue Anchor Inn in Coinagehall Street.
- Poldark Mine, Trenear, near Helston (Poldark Mine in the series) is about 25 miles from Newquay. The site is a visitor attraction and you can also go on a mine tour, underground. The tour has some strict rules about footwear (e.g. no flip flops) and the age of children etc as it’s quite narrow and precarious at points. Because it’s inside a real mine it’s also not possible for wheelchairs or any other mobility impairments to be accommodated. Poldark Mine is what it is – and no amount of PC can change that or it’d not be what it is! It’s the real deal.
- Lellizzick Cliffs near Padstow are used in the opening episode and are about 20 miles north of Newquay. If it looks or sounds familiar, it might be because it was part of a Time Team dig at Lellizzick in 2007. The area is on a headland overlooking the sand dunes at Hawkers Cove, just over a mile from Padstow – it’s a great walk round the headland in general, although there are about 150 car parking spaces at Lellizzick, in peak seasons it can be a fight to get a spot, so it makes for a better walk than drive. In the summer there’s a great there is an ice cream stop off in the garden of a house there, when I walked I wasn’t so lucky as I did the walk out of season. The road down to Lellizzick is steep – with a 20%, or 1-in-5 gradient. This area’s more for ramblers in boots than strollers in flip flops 🙂 but if you fancy 3-4 hours of walking around, then phototrails have plotted a route: Lillizzick and Stepper Point. They have given the route a Grade 3, which they say means “There may be no resting points, long or steep gradients, a narrow path in places, poor surfaces or obstacles like kissing gates.”
