It won millions of fans all over the world with its fantasy universe full of witches, daemons, and armoured polar bears.

And Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials is set to come to life on the small screen, with the first pictures of the set in Llangynidr Quarry in Crickhowell, Wales released.

The hotly anticipated series, which will air on the BBC on 2019, and stars James McAvoy and Ruth Wilson, was originally green-lit in 2015 with an eight-episode series.

It is based on the books in Pullman’s trilogy, Northern Lights (1995), The Subtle Knife (1997) and The Amber Spyglass (2000).

The striking first photos from the set show the construction of a ramshackle town in the quarry, with a rickety wooden boarding house and soot-stained church dominating the landscape.

A derelict barn with boxes stacked inside was also visible, with brightly coloured pick-up trucks helping with the construction.

Catching the eye was a rust-riddled boat at one side of the quarry, which was perched on a stand, with a quirky looking stone well in the corner.