Here is the twist most viewers miss: Beyond Paradise is written as a South Devon story, but it is filmed almost entirely in Cornwall. The fictional town of Shipton Abbott, where DI Humphrey Goodman swaps the Caribbean for drizzle and dog walks, is built largely from one real place - the fishing town of Looe in south-east Cornwall. Shipton Abbott does not exist, but nearly every street, harbour and clifftop you see on screen does, and most of them are an easy day out.
That Cornwall connection is confirmed by Visit Cornwall and by the production itself. The handful of genuinely Devon locations are minor and inland; the town you actually watch, week after week, is Cornish. Here is every confirmed location behind the show, grouped by area, with how to visit each one.
Looe - the heart of Shipton Abbott
If Shipton Abbott has a home, it is Looe. The harbour is the show’s main waterfront, with the distinctive curved Banjo Pier on East Looe Beach appearing in establishing shots throughout. The town’s Guildhall doubles as Shipton Abbott Police Station in every series, and Fore Street stands in for the market square and high street where so much of the small-town drama plays out.
Looe Bridge, the seven-arch crossing built in 1854 that joins East and West Looe, appears as the fictional town’s bridge in establishing shots. In series three, Martha’s cafe moved to The Sardine Factory on the harbour, with the neighbouring Looe Heritage Centre used for some of those scenes. Earlier series filmed cafe scenes elsewhere (see the Tamar Valley below), which is why fans notice the cafe seems to move around the town.
The real pleasure of Looe as a filming location is how compact it is. You can walk between the harbour, the Guildhall, the bridge and Fore Street in under 20 minutes, so a morning covers the core of Portwenn. Looe is a working fishing port as well as a holiday town, so expect boats landing the day’s catch alongside the pasty shops. There are plenty of cottages and apartments in Looe within sight of the water, which makes it the obvious base for a filming-location trip.
Pentillie Estate and the Tamar Valley
Some of the show’s most recognisable home scenes are filmed at Pentillie Castle and Estate, on the River Tamar near Saltash. The riverside cottage and quay there serve as the setting for Humphrey and Martha’s life on the water, including the houseboat mooring. Pentillie is a private estate that hosts events and offers holiday accommodation, so it is worth checking what is open before you go rather than turning up unannounced.
Earlier series used Port Eliot House and Gardens at St Germans, where The Stables played Martha’s cafe in series one and two. Both sit in the quiet, wooded Tamar Valley on Cornwall’s eastern edge, a part of the county that rarely makes the postcards but turns up again and again on screen. The valley is threaded with creeks and old quays, which is exactly the look the show reaches for when it wants water without the open sea.
Rame Peninsula - cliffs, bays and an Iron Age fort
For the show’s wilder, windswept moments, production heads to the Rame Peninsula, the remote south-east corner sometimes called Cornwall’s forgotten corner. Whitsand Bay, a long stretch of cliff-backed sand reached by steep paths down from the coast road, provides the dramatic coastal scenes.
Series three made use of Rame Head itself, the headland topped by a tiny medieval chapel and ringed by an Iron Age cliff castle. The abandoned military structures nearby, with their concrete steps and gun emplacements, give the location its brooding, end-of-the-land atmosphere. It is a genuinely atmospheric spot for a walk, and easy to combine with a swim or a picnic at Whitsand Bay on the same trip. The peninsula is a 30 to 40-minute drive from Looe, much of it down narrow lanes, so allow time.
Pont Creek and the Fowey estuary
For secluded water scenes, the crew has used Pont Creek, a quiet wooded inlet across the water from Fowey. It is a low-key location with no car park and no fuss - the kind of place you reach on foot from Polruan or by the small ferry across the estuary, which is part of its on-screen appeal. Fowey itself, with its deep-water harbour and steep streets, makes a rewarding half-day on the way to or from the other locations.
Bodmin, Launceston and Pelynt
Not everything happens by the sea. In Bodmin, the Neon Nightclub was renamed “Bounce” for a series-three investigation, swapping mid-Cornwall nightlife for a crime scene. Further north, Church Street in Launceston, the old castle town on the Devon border, doubles as another stretch of Shipton Abbott’s high street - useful for the production when it needs a different-looking row of shopfronts. The village of Pelynt, in the lanes between Looe and Polperro, also gets a look in, with Pelynt Garage appearing in the show.
What about the Devon locations?
To be fair to the show’s setting, a handful of scenes really are filmed in Devon. Buckfastleigh railway station stands in for Shipton Abbott Station, the secluded waterside around Weir Quay and Bere Ferrers has been used for a few shots, and the University of Plymouth plays the South West Police headquarters. They are real, but they are minor: a train platform, a boatyard and a city building. The fictional setting is Devon; the filming is Cornwall.
Plan your Beyond Paradise trip
The locations cluster neatly enough for a long weekend, and they all work from a single base. Stay in Looe for the heart of Shipton Abbott - harbour, Guildhall, bridge and Fore Street all on foot - then spread out from there.
- Day one: Looe itself. Walk the harbour, find the Guildhall and Fore Street, and cross the 1854 bridge, then add a short trip to Polperro, the neighbouring fishing village whose narrow harbour streets carry the same south-east Cornwall mood.
- Day two: the Rame Peninsula - Whitsand Bay for the beach and Rame Head for the clifftop chapel and Iron Age fort. Pack walking shoes and a picnic.
- Half a day: the Tamar Valley around Saltash and Calstock, near the Pentillie filming area, or the Fowey estuary and Pont Creek to the west.
For a base, there are holiday cottages in Looe and cottages in Polperro within easy reach of every location on this list. Book early for summer and half-term, when this stretch of coast fills up. Beyond Paradise may call it Devon, but the welcome - and the weather - is pure Cornwall.
