Brand new BBC One drama Poldark will premiere next week after being made at The Bottle Yard Studios last Summer. The eight part series, which filmed between April and October 2014, begins on Sunday 8th March at 9pm.
Mammoth Screen, the production company behind the highly anticipated drama, built sets within the Studio’s Tank House 1 and 2 spaces, to create a range of key locations featured in the drama, including The Red Lion pub and the interior of ‘Nampara’, Ross Poldark’s home. The production team coordinated the complex shoot from The Bottle Yard’s production offices, and also based a comprehensive costume department onsite, complete with the sewing, dying and fitting rooms required to deliver the high volume and quality of period costumes required for a production of Poldark’s lavish scale.
As well as filming on-site at The Bottle Yard Studios, Poldark’s six month shoot also used a range of locations across Bristol and Cornwall, including historic Chavenage House near Bristol, Prior Park College in Bath, the Cornish town Charlestown and the Botallack Mines at St Just.
Poldark Producer Eliza Mellor says: “We chose The Bottle Yard Studios as they had great spaces for our set builds, gave us outstanding access to Cornwall where we filmed over the summer and are increasingly a thriving production centre which made it a really good base for the Poldark team.”
Fiona Francombe, Site Director of The Bottle Yard Studios, said: “I’m glad to say that our ability to offer close access to the beautiful Cornish countryside just a few hours’ drive away, in addition to a huge volume of flexible space for set building, prop stores and costume departments, made us the prime candidate to host Poldark last year. We’re proud to have played such an important role in the making of this epic romantic drama. Set against the stunning scenery of the South West, it’s sure to look spectacular on screen.”
Based on the novels by Winston Graham, Poldark is an eight part series written and created for television by Debbie Horsfield (Cutting It, The Riff Raff Element), produced by Eliza Mellor (Death Comes to Pemberley) and directed by Ed Bazalgette (The Guilty, Endeavour) and William McGregor (Misfits). The executive producers are Debbie Horsfield, Karen Thrussell and Damien Timmer for Mammoth Screen, Polly Hill for the BBC and Rebecca Eaton for MASTERPIECE.