Phwoah! Welcome to Poldark country

Never mind the actors in the BBC drama, it’s the wonderful Cornish settings that should set pulses racing, says Lesley Gillian

The BBC’s small-screen adaptation of Winston Graham’s Poldark novels is a feast of stirring drama, romance and smouldering good looks – and that’s just the Cornish landscapes. Actor Aiden Turner is Poldark’s heartthrob, but it’s the wild headlands, beaches and brooding moorland backdrops that often steal the show.

Season two kicks-off tomorrow, alongside a raft of Poldark- themed discovery trails. Visit Cornwall (visitcornwall.com) offers a map to key filming locations. And a Poldark Guide produced by the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site (cornishmining.org.uk) is a reminder of the history and real-life dramas behind Poldark’s 18th century tin-mining tale. Here is our pick of the 10 best Poldark locations in Cornwall.

Charlestown

One of the world’s best preserved historic harbours, this 18th-century village stood in for Poldark’s Truro-Falmouth mining port. Built by Charles Rashleigh in the 1790s to serve south Cornwall’s copper mining and china clay industries, Charlestown is no stranger to film crews: Doctor Who, Treasure Island and Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland are among the many productions in which use has been made of its original Georgian cobbles, granite quays and quaint harbourside cottages. Often furnished with Square Sails’ replica tall ships, Charlestown really looks the part.

Porthcurno

This beguiling Land’s End beach is the setting for a series two dream sequence for Ross and his wife Demelza (played by Eleanor Tomlinson). And it is dreamy: a perfect bay of powdery sand framed by high cliffs; islets and pinnacles of rock trailing into the Atlantic which, on a sunny day takes on the colour of the Caribbean. For added drama, climb the flight of 90 rock-cut steps to the spectacular Minack Theatre, built in a clifftop gully in the Twenties.

Porthgwarra

A tiny fishing cove, sheltered by Gwennap Head (another Poldark location), Porthgwarra was a Cornish secret until Aiden Turner was filmed here skinny dipping in the bay. There are boats on a cobbled slipway, caves and quaint cottages (mostly owned by the Lord St Levan’s St Aubyn’s Estate) but the star attraction are the rock tunnels cut into the cliff by 18th-century miners, and once used to store shellfish.

Kynance Cove

On the west coast of the Lizard Peninsula, spectacular Kynance, shows off its wild side in series two as Poldark’s Nampara Cove. From the National Trust car park, steps descend to a rugged serpentine bay where foamy waves race across rocks onto white sands. At high tide the beach virtually disappears but you can admire the view from the grassy terrace of Kynance Cove Café (kynancecovecafe.co.uk); or set off along the cliff-path on a twomile walk, via wild flower meadows and herds of Dexter cattle, to the headland at Predannack Wollas – which provides a windswept backdrop for some of Aiden Turner’s frequent horseback gallops.

Church Cove at Gunwalloe

Another Lizard Peninsula location, this classic beach is the setting for a nocturnal ship wrecking scene filmed for series one. From the cliffs above, you can walk to the recently restored engine houses at Rinsey. In the same area, discover Poldark Mine (poldarkmine. org.uk) a tin-mine tourist attraction which predates the BBC’s first Poldark production in the Seventies and was reopened, under new ownership, just in time for the second. Further north, visit the National Trust’s Poldark stars Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson, left; Kynance Cove, below; Levant mine, bottom left

Godolphin House (nationaltrust. org.uk), the elegant home of wealthy mineral-lord Francis Godolphin – a real-life Warleggan.

Holywell Bay

Look out for shots of Holywell Bay’s sandy dunes, another National Trust beauty, captured in series two as part of the estate owned by rival mining family the Warleggans. Typical of the north-coast’s surfy runway beaches, this one is a quieter alternative to the neighbouring Perranporth (where Winston Graham wrote most of the Poldark novels).

Bodmin Moor and St Breward

The role of Ross Poldark’s slate-and-granite cottage at Nampara, went to a house near the village of St Breward on craggy Bodmin Moor – home to some of Cornwall’s richest mining landscapes. Soak up the atmosphere at the Minions Heritage Centre (in the engine house of the former South Phoenix Mine), or explore the fragile ruins of the 19th-century copper mine on Caradon Hill. The scene of a real-life boom-and-bust period drama, you can see chimney stacks, overgrown waste dumps, the rubbled track-beds of old mineral railways and views across the Seaton Valley towards the south-east coast (cornish-mining. org.uk).

Botallack

Poldark’s fictional Grambler and Wheal Leisure tin mines are brought to life by relics at Botallack where the ruins of historic Crowns Mine cling to rocky ledges on vertiginous Atlantic cliffs close to Pendeen Lighthouse. On Penwith Peninsula’s ravishing “Tin Coast”, these are among the most iconic of Cornwall’s 168 surviving engine houses, but nowhere else tells the story better than nearby Geevor. The last Cornish mine to close, in 1991, it is now a visitor centre featuring a Hard Rock Museum, cogs, wheels and winders, original shafts and underground tours led by former miners (geevor.com).

Levant Mine

Poldark’s fictional Tressider Rolling Mill is played by the National Trust’s well preserved Levant Mine at Trewellard – a star turn in the World Heritage Site’s St Just Mining District thanks to its steampowered, 1840s Cornish beam engine which is restored to working order (regular steam days display the engine in action, in all it’s oily glory). With views of the Atlantic from sturdy granite buildings, there are dressing floors, arsenic works and a tunnel to the Miners’ Dry, where men prepared for the long haul underground (the shafts of this “mine under the sea” reached depths of a third of a mile).

St Agnes Head

A double for Poldark’s Nampara Valley, the north-coast Parish of St Agnes is proper Poldark Country – a combination of pretty village (the St Agnes Museum is big on giants and minerals), granite mariners’ cottages sloping down to Trevaunance Cove and the engine houses at Wheal Coates which stand majestically on high, heathery cliffs overlooking the spectacular beach at Chapel Porth. Over the hill (and what a hill – steep is an understatement), you can visit the family-run Blue Hills Tin Streams (bluehillstin.com), a cottage-industry mine which still turn minerals into metal.

The second series of Poldark begins tomorrow at 9pm on BBC One. For our selection of the best hotels in Cornwall see telegraph.co.uk/tt-cornwall hotels