Filming locations in Cornwall

Cornwall, England's wild south-western tip, is all cliff-top engine houses, fishing harbours and surf beaches, and it is the unmistakable backdrop to Poldark. The brooding period romance leaned almost entirely on real coast, so following it is less a hunt for sets than a tour of some of the county's finest seaside spots.

Start at Charlestown, a Georgian harbour near St Austell that still has tall ships moored at its quay. With almost nothing changed since the eighteenth century, it stands in for the series' ports unaltered, and it is free to walk around at any time, ringed by cafés and a shipwreck museum. It remains a working heritage port, so give the ships and any filming a wide berth.

The most dramatic location is Botallack Mine, out on the Tin Coast near St Just, where the Crowns engine houses cling to the very edge of the cliff. These are Poldark's Wheal Leisure, the mine at the centre of his fortunes, and they are a free National Trust site reached by a short walk down a rough track. Wear sturdy shoes, because the ground near the cliff edges is unforgiving.

For the title-sequence gallop you want Holywell Bay near Newquay, a wide dune-backed surf beach with twin rocky islets offshore. The strand is enormous at low water and shrinks at high, so check the tide before you go, and time it right and you can walk out across the same windswept sand the camera swept along.

These spots string out along the coast rather than cluster, so a car is the way to do Cornwall, hopping from harbour to mine to beach with plenty of stops for a Cornish pasty. The coast path links many of them on foot too, and en route the Eden Project's biomes and the restored beam engine at neighbouring Levant make easy additions to the trip.