Doctor Who

Produced by: BBC Wales

Starring: David Tennant, Billie Piper, Matt Smith

The hugely popular BBC Wales series, Doctor Who, follows an eccentric Time Lord travelling through space and time in the TARDIS to battle injustice across the universe.

The series has been filmed in a variety of different locations across the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley; have you ever recognised the Time Lord in Chepstow, Caerwent, Beechenhurst, Monmouth, Skenfrith, Puzzlewood, or Clearwell Caves? Of course, the series was filmed primarily in Cardiff so, at just an hour away, we were an ideal choice when they needed to shoot at ancient ruins, magical forests, underground caves, and dramatic rivers.

Highlights of Doctor Who Episodes Filmed in the Forest of Dean and Wye Valley

Puzzlewood

The iconic science fiction series used Puzzlewood’s twisting, turning depths to stunning effect in two standout episodes that screened during Season 5 of the BBC Wales production. These episodes were filmed in 2009 and first screened on TV in April and May 2010, starring Matt Smith as the eleventh incarnation of the Doctor, Karen Gillan as assistant Amy Pond, and Alex Kingston as future companion River Song. The episodes were called "The Time of Angels" and "Flesh and Stone", and the location chosen was right in the centre of Puzzlewood, among the deep gullies and dramatic rock formations known as scowles.

In the 2013 Christmas special "The Time of the Doctor", Puzzlewood was used once again as the setting for an encounter with the Weeping Angels, as Doctor Who and his assistant Clara find themselves ambushed in the snow on a planet that they cannot quite identify. This episode was also the last adventure for the eleventh incarnation of The Doctor; Matt Smith had filmed "Flesh and Stone" as his first episode of Doctor Who at Puzzlewood during nine rainy nights in 2009, so to film at Puzzlewood again was the perfect finish for Matt Smith's time travelling adventure.

There are a lovely series of behind the scenes photos of Dr Who filming at Puzzlewood on the BBC website here, and you can watch an excerpt of the episode "Flesh and Stone", filmed at Puzzlewood, below:

Clearwell Caves

Clearwell Caves has been the site of plenty of time travelling adventures, featuring in the episodes: "The Christmas Invasion", "The Satan Pit", "The Fires of Pompeii", "The Time of Angels", and "Flesh and Stone". In "The Christmas Invasion", the Doctor (David Tennant) has to embark on a race against time to save the human race from being enslaved by the Sycorax, with Clearwell Caves serving as the interior of the Sycorax spaceship.

Beechenhurst

If you’ve seen the 2011 Christmas special entitled "The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe", then you’ve seen Beechenhurst transformed. In this episode, the Doctor’s adventures plunged him into a situation in which the Doctor (Matt Smith) finds himself coming to the aid of a family who really are in need of a happy ending to their year, giving them a gift that transports them to a classic, wintry Christmas environment. The special owes a dash of inspiration to the C.S. Lewis novel The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe.