TELEVISION crews were back in Pembrokeshire this week, this time at Broad Haven South filming for a new period drama.

Created by Kurt Sutter and aired in the United States, The Bastard Executioner is set in north Wales during a time of political upheaval and rebellion.

The series follows the story of Wilkin Brattle, a Welsh knight in the army of King Edward II. He is betrayed by an Englishman who has a lust for power and who leaves him for dead. When Brattle is near death, a divine messenger tells him to lay down his sword and follow a different path.

We later see Brattle living as a married peasant farmer, awaiting the birth of a child. But his life is shattered by unbearable taxes imposed by Baron Erik Ventris, the man who originally betrayed him.

Brattle leads a raid on the Baron's tax collector, which leads Ventris to the revenge killing of all the women and children in Brattle's village.

Brattle and the other peasants battle with the Baron ending in the death of Ventris and the massacre of his troops. Revenge, however, is not complete, as the peasants want all the soldiers who slaughtered their women and children to die by the sword.

Brattle assumes the role of their executioner, but there is a twist in the plot which leads him to question whether his new path is the one the apparition has chosen for him, or if he has been led astray.

The Bastard Executioner stars Lee Jones (Magical Tales, Home and Away), Katey Sagal (Sons of Anarchy, Lost, Futurama), Flora Spencer-Longhurst (Leonardo, Unforgiven), Stephen Moyer (True Blood) and Sam Spruell (Taken 3, Snow White and the Huntsman).

Filming began in March this year. Beforehand the show's producers spent months looking at various locations across Wales, assisted by the Welsh Government’s Wales Screen service, which encourages film and television productions to use locations, crews, and facilities here.