Cornwall for film and TV fans: the complete guide

Cornwall has been doubling for other worlds for the best part of a century. The county’s wild moorland, granite engine houses, tidal castles and working fishing harbours give location scouts a landscape that needs almost no dressing, which is why so much of British television and cinema keeps coming back here. If you plan your holidays around the places you have watched on screen, this is one of the richest corners of the country you can visit; you can stand on the exact slipway where Doc Martin has his surgery, walk the beach where the Targaryens brooded, and photograph the harbour that has stood in for Georgian Bristol more times than anyone can count.

This guide is your overview of Cornwall as a filming destination as a whole, the big productions, the landmark locations, and the practical know-how for tracking them down. We have kept it county-wide on purpose. For the deep-dive on the most famous filming village of all, Port Isaac, follow the link at the end. Everywhere else, use this page to build a route that takes in the productions you love most.

Doc Martin and Port Isaac

No show is more closely tied to a single Cornish place than Doc Martin. The village of Port Isaac on the north coast played the fictional Portwenn across all ten series, and it remains the first stop for most fans planning Doc Martin in Cornwall. The steep-sided harbour, the narrow lanes known locally as drangs, and the slipway are all instantly recognisable, and the exterior of the doctor’s cottage sits high on the hillside looking down over the water. Port Isaac also served as the main location for the Fisherman’s Friends films, so there is more than one production to hunt down in a single small village.

If you are specifically after the Doc Martin sites in Port Isaac, our dedicated town guide covers the individual spots in detail, along with parking, tides and where to eat while you are there. Fair warning for the persona planner: Port Isaac is tiny and hugely popular in summer, so early mornings give you the quiet, crowd-free shots you are after.

JV’s Top Tip – Step into the real Portwen – book your Doc Martin filming locations tour here today!

Poldark country

The BBC’s 2015 to 2019 Poldark leant hard into authentic Cornish terrain, favouring real clifftops and UNESCO industrial sites over studio sets. That commitment means the locations are genuinely spectacular in their own right, not just familiar from the credits.

• Penberth Cove: A tiny, National Trust owned fishing hamlet between Porthcurno and Mousehole, Penberth doubled as Sawle, the fictional village home to Demelza’s brothers Sam and Drake Carne. It recurs across multiple series: Demelza addressing villagers on the slipway, Drake and Sam talking outside the blacksmith’s, Morwenna crossing the stream’s stepping stones. It required almost no dressing to become the eighteenth century, since the cove has no modern intrusions to hide. No shops, no cafés, just stone cottages, a working slipway, and a handful of fishing boats still using the original capstan.
• Porthgwarra: This secluded cove near Land’s End stood in for Nampara Cove, most memorably in the scene where Ross skinny dips in the sea while Demelza watches from the clifftop above. The cove’s hidden tunnel also served as the spot where Ross kept his boat. It’s a working fishing cove with a small café that famously stayed open overnight for cast and crew during filming.
• Botallack and Levant Mines: On the St Just peninsula, the twin Crowns engine houses perched low on the cliffs at Botallack doubled as Ross Poldark’s Wheal Leisure and later Wheal Grace. Nearby Levant stood in for Tressiders Rolling Mill, and it is home to a working 1840s beam engine on its original site.
• Charlestown: This unaltered 18th-century harbour near St Austell is the crown jewel of Cornish filming. Its granite quays and resident tall ships serve as Poldark’s home port and have doubled for Truro, Falmouth and even historic Bristol and London docks.
• Gunwalloe Church Cove: On the Lizard, this was the setting for the dramatic night-time shipwreck and beach-looting scenes, filmed over several freezing nights under industrial light rigs. The tiny church of St Winwaloe sits right in the sand.
• Holywell Bay: Near Newquay, its twin limestone sea stacks framed Poldark’s horse races and windswept beach walks.
• Gwennap Pit: A natural earth amphitheatre near Redruth used for the large outdoor Methodist preaching scenes, and a genuine piece of Cornish religious history where John Wesley himself once preached.

Fantasy, sci-fi and the blockbusters

Cornwall is not all period drama. In recent years the county has drawn some of the biggest franchises in the world.

• Kynance Cove & Cadgwith: HBO’s new Harry Potter TV series has brought its own screen magic to the Lizard Peninsula, with production spotted filming key scenes at the dramatic turquoise waters of Kynance Cove; including a pivotal meeting between Nicolas and Perenelle Flamel and Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore, played by John Lithgow; alongside further filming at the postcard-perfect fishing village of Cadgwith and at Carnglaze Caverns. It’s a fitting return to form for Cornwall’s coastline, already familiar to genre fans from Driftmark’s cliffs in House of the Dragon.
• St Michael’s Mount: The tidal island at Marazion was transformed into Driftmark, ancestral seat of House Velaryon, for HBO’s House of the Dragon. The same dramatic profile has also appeared in Dracula, Johnny English and Rebecca.
• Holywell Bay again: Those Gull Rocks sea stacks also served as the backdrop for pivotal beach scenes in House of the Dragon, so a single stretch of sand ticks off both Poldark and Westeros.
• The Eden Project: The geodesic biomes near St Austell stood in as the villain’s compound in the James Bond film Die Another Day, and later appeared in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
• Land’s End and Sennen Cove: The granite clifftops at the far west tip hosted Nicolas Roeg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Witches.

Literary adaptations and du Maurier country

Cornwall’s landscape has inspired novelists as much as it has attracted film crews, and several adaptations were shot where the books were set. Frenchman’s Creek, the silent oak-fringed tidal inlet on the Helford River, is the exact spot that inspired Daphne du Maurier’s romance and its screen versions. Fans of the Rosamunde Pilcher adaptations, hugely popular on German television, will recognise Cornwall’s coastal villages, gardens and clifftop houses throughout, as her Cornwall-set novels have been filmed here for decades. The county’s brooding harbours and moors make it a natural home for this kind of storytelling.

How to plan a Cornwall film locations trip

A few practical pointers to make your location-hunting run smoothly:

• Group by region, not by show. West Cornwall gives you Botallack, Land’s End, St Michael’s Mount and Gunwalloe within a short drive. The south coast clusters Charlestown, the Eden Project and Frenchman’s Creek. The north coast is Doc Martin and Holywell Bay territory. Building your route geographically saves hours behind the wheel.
• Check the tides. St Michael’s Mount and Frenchman’s Creek are tidal, and Port Isaac’s harbour looks completely different at high and low water. Look up crossing and tide times before you set off.
• Go early or out of season. The most photogenic locations are also the busiest. Early morning light and shoulder-season quiet will get you the uncluttered shots that match the screen.
• Respect that people live here. Many locations are real working villages and private homes. Fern Cottage in Port Isaac is a holiday let, not a set, so admire from the public lanes.
• Consider a guided tour. For the biggest hubs, local walking tours add behind-the-scenes trivia and stories from residents who were there during filming.

Our top picks for film fans

• Best all-rounder: Charlestown, where a single harbour has stood in for half of Georgian Britain.
• Best pilgrimage: Port Isaac for Doc Martin and Fisherman’s Friends in one village.
• Best two-for-one: Holywell Bay, covering both Poldark and House of the Dragon.
• Most dramatic backdrop: Botallack’s Crowns engine houses on the St Just cliffs.

Explore Cornwall for film and TV fans by area

This is our county-wide overview. For the most-filmed village in Cornwall, dive into our in-depth guide to the Doc Martin sites and filming locations in Port Isaac.