Bristol’s buoyant TV production industry has been given a boost with the return of BBC One hit drama Poldark to The Bottle Yard Studios for its hotly anticipated second series.
Filming of the gripping 18th century drama began again this week at the studio complex, which this time is playing a bigger role in the production.
Mammoth Screen, the production company behind the hugely successful romantic saga, has taken more space at The Bottle Yard to build sets while a team coordinating the shoot is based at the studio’s production offices. 
It also has a comprehensive costume department onsite, complete with sewing, dying and fitting rooms, onsite.
Mammoth shot the eight-part first series, which attracted on average 8m viewers per episode, at The Bottle Yard between April and October last year.
Sets including The Red Lion pub and Ross Poldark’s home Nampara were built within the studio’s Tank House 2 to create key settings featured in the drama.
The new ten-part series, set among riots and revolutions in 1790 and starring Aidan Turner and Eleanor Tomlinson as Ross Poldark and Demelza, will take seven months to shoot at The Bottle Yard in Hengrove and locations across Cornwall, Bristol and Wiltshire.
The Bottle Yard Studios site director Fiona Francombe said: “We’re very happy to be welcoming the team from Mammoth back again this year and are looking forward to another busy and productive time with them on-site.
“As so often happens with a second series, needs have changed and requirements have grown and we’re delighted to be able to accommodate everything the production team need. We have no doubt that the outstanding success of the first series will continue with series two, and we are proud that The Bottle Yard, Bristol and Bristol’s crews are very much playing their part in the making of this high calibre of drama.”
Poldark is the latest in a string of major titles to be made at The Bottle Yard Studios, a former winery and bottling plant. Filming now are ABC Studios’ US comedy series Galavant and upcoming BBC One supernatural drama The Living and the Dead.
The upcoming 2015 special episode of BBC One drama Sherlock, BAFTA-winning The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies and Emmy-nominated BBC Two drama Wolf Hall have recently been made at the studio, while Sky 1 comedy Trollied recently returned for its fifth series – with the show’s production head describing the Bottle Yard as a “great place to shoot”.
Image courtesy of Mammoth Screen and Masterpiece
