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★ Newbies guide to being on a film set The official tumblr for Merlinlocations.com The BBC television show Merlin films in a variety of beautiful and intriguing locations. This site aims to share information about and images of those locations. We started visiting these sites simply because we’re fans of the show – but we soon became a fan of these places for their own sake. Locations such as Chateau de Pierrefonds, Puzzlewood, Dunraven Bay, Porth yr Ogof and Burnham Beeches are well worth a visit, whether you find pretty people and unicorns there or not. This tumblr aims to share fan photos, reports and answer any questions you have regarding the locations. We're not affiliated with the BBC, but we'll help you in any way we can. Merlinlocations on Flickr
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OK, so all the usual, and things we've seen before - such as Morgana's hall, which is the council chambers set redressed.
The garrison attacked by Morgana and Mordred seemed to be filmed at Caerphilly Castle, and the exterior shot of it (on fire) seemed to also use the castle, multiplied by CGI.
We then find Morgana and Mordred in Puzzlewood with Aithusa. Merlin and Gwaine also go there to find the crystal cave - which is where Merlin found it last time, in episode 305, so that's nice continuity.
Merlin then climbs through Clearwell Caves, which I'm sure you all recognise by now with the smooth reddish rock.
I suspect once he's trapped behind the rockfall, however, that is the 'cave' set. The crystal cave itself is definitely the set. (And yay Balinor!)
Camlan is, I assume, at Trefil Quarry.
Whew! Thank Emrys they're only making us wait two days for part two!
The usual use of the Chateau and the Cardiff sets. Interesting bits include the room where Morgana deals with Alator, which was the Council Chambers set mocked up with ivy and a different throne. Also, when Merlin gathers flowers out the front of the castle, that's really the Chateau in the background; that was filmed up on the high ground there, which has been used for various things.
I think that we find Finna hanging out in the ruins at Margam Country Park. It's not somewhere I've visited, so perhaps someone can confirm? Maybe many of the forest scenes were filmed there as well. They certainly looked similar.
The ‘watchtower’ was Caerphilly Castle, and specfically the same building used for the Fisher King. If you climb up to the top, you emerge on an empty flat roof, as Merlin did. (Though to be honest, I don't remember the surface being wood planks, but perhaps that was to make it look more medieval?)
OK, only the one obvious new location here. There was the usual Chateau, sets, and generic forest scenes...
As we saw earlier on, it's nice that Gaius's room has been given a ceiling - I assume this was built new for the 5th season.
The exterior of the Dochraid's cave was perhaps mocked up in Puzzlewood, while the interior was almost certainly a set.
Morgana and Aithusa were hanging out in Puzzlewood.
I assume that much of the action during the latter parts of the episode was at Trefil Quarry. It may be no coincidence that director Alice Troughton has named Trefil as her favourite location.
I'm not sure about the 'Cauldron', but perhaps it was in or near Trefil Quarry. Can anyone who's visited confirm or deny...? There was such a beautiful colour to the water. ♥
We open with some great dramatic shots of the Chateau. And indeed much of the episode is based in Camelot, so there's lots of use of the Chateau de Pierrefonds and the Cardiff sets (including... aw... Gaius in bed). Gwen and the Sarrum meet above the chapel at the Chateau. Otherwise, while it's mostly things we've seen before, there's some interesting new angles and composition.
There's some generic forest scenes which chances are is Fforest Fawr. And of course the Valley of the Fallen Kings is Puzzlewood.
But really, while the locations are all familiar, I keep coming back to the unusual lighting and cinematography in this episode. Nicely done, Alice T and Ashley Rowe!
I suppose the last thing most of us are thinking about is locations right now... But here we go anyway!
I’m assuming the Brecon Beacons for Tom’s grave... What do you think?
The grassy area with the trees and the steep grassy slope, where Morgana ambushes our heroes, is ringing vague bells for me... Can anyone help me out with that, like you all did last week?
There is probably much use made again of Fforest Fawr - it looks right for where they find Guinevere’s horse, and for some other forest scenes, too. The scenes with the pine trees might be Wenallt Woods, but that’s a guess.
I’m assuming Trefil Quarry for the barren places around the Dark Tower - with CGI to make it more extensive, and a red filter colouring it.
The Impenetrable Forest was, I assume, mocked up by the art department. Maybe starting with somewhere like Puzzlewood, but adding in lots of vines at which to hack.
The view Arthur looks out on is the River Wye. They’ve made much use of this stock footage this season: the view Annis looks out on as Arthur and the others ride away; the scene where a village in Nemeth is being burned; and so on.
The tower scenes, I’m guessing, were mostly a mix of Caerphilly Castle and the Cardiff sets. The ghastly room in which Gwen is kept seems to be the new set that looks like an undercroft. The external walls when Arthur and the knights approach the tower and enter in looks like Caerphilly.
The spiral staircase seemed to be real, but it’s also fairly wide, and the nature of the stone suggest the Chateau de Pierrefonds rather than Caerphilly - but that’s a guess. There’s no disguised handrail or rope, so that’s unusual. Maybe a staircase at the Chateau that isn’t open to the public?
The room with the flagstones and the arrows is the big green room set. Not so sure about the room with the Invisible Swordsman...
Then it’s Speech House Lake, of course, for the lake where Elyan is laid to rest. Though if that’s the usual bank where they’re all standing, it’s a lot grassier these days! It might well be somewhere else, standing in. (Though it looks even less like the Etang de Carandeau.)
And then definitely Puzzlewood, including the bridge, for where Gwen meets Morgana.
Well...wow. I'm sure we all have mixed feelings after that one.
A stunning episode, in all kinds of ways, not least for the fact we're still attracting the best guest stars. Andrew Tiernan is a long-time favourite of mine, and of course Frances Tomelty has sterling credentials. (Apologies for being even later than ever in updating, but Cold Con madness kind of took over the weekend!)
So. Locations. I believe The Disir were hanging out in Clearwell Caves. It was filmed with a very cool light, so we didn't get the telltale hint of red ochre, but it looked the part, was a bit too extensive for a set, and as I mentioned somewhere below they do have pools of standing water in there.
Immediately outside the cave we found ourselves in the ever-magical Puzzlewood. Hurrah!
When the Knights of the Round Table were riding out across moorland, it made me think of the Brecon Beacons or places thereabouts, but it's hard to get very specific about such scenes!
Some of the 'generic forest scenes' I recognised as being near the Chateau de Pierrefonds, while others may well have been Fforest Fawr; they had the right look for the latter, certainly. I have a hunch that the place they buried Osgar, where Merlin built his cairn, was just down the path from the log circle and tiny cliff-face used in episodes 407 The Secret Sharer and 408 Lamia.
It was good to see some minor characters from last series again, what an episode!
I feel like I should know something about that opening shot of the castle at Nemeth. Obviously there's lots of CGI involved, but there's something about it that's ringing some vague bells. (All input welcome!)
update: I don't think I can really give much credit to those bells of mine, but Location Geek Bess earns herself two gold stars this week for identifying the bulk of the scene as Raglan Castle - and even having a photo to prove it, taken from the right angle and everything! Yay, Bess!
Obviously there was still a lot of CGI, but there's the heart of the scene!
And golly their throne room is magnificent! That would be using the big green screen room in the studios again, but if you know what's been used as the basis of the architecture, I'd love to know about it! It's got a real European or Eastern European feel to it.
update: Obviously I should have explored that hunch a little further, as the CGI images used for the interior are quite obviously from theHagia Sophia in Turkey (see Wikipedia). Thank you to all who provided that info!
The exterior of the tomb where Mithian's father King Rodor is being kept is King Arthur's Cave, near Symonds Yat in the Wye Valley. I'd visited it for its name before, and we knew they'd scoped it out as a location last year, but this is the first we've seen of it on the screen. You can see my photos of it on Flickr here.
Great use of the heights of the chapel at the Chateau de Pierrefonds, with the distinctive stained glass windows, in the scenes where Mithian tries to escape from Morgana during the night at Camelot. Also, the scene where they all ride out from the courtyard: we got to watch them filming that in June! (And I will never cease to be amazed at how much time and effort goes into these short scenes that help establish the 'reality' of it all - but the show wouldn't be the same without them.)
I'd love to know where the bluebells were! Possibly the Forest of Dean? (They're why I used to visit the forest in the days of yore pre-Merlin.) I'd also love to know about the stream at which Merlin and Gaius are filling water skins. We'll have to get our Locations Detective onto that! (And isn't it great to see Gaius out on location...?! Poor Richard!)
The ruins in which they 'camp overnight in the forest of Gedref' are, I am guessing, Candleston Castle near Merthyr Mawr. One of the team has visited it already, so I'll double-check with her!
The place where Merlin finds Mithian's message about Morgana on a rock by the stream is Cannop Ponds. So cool to see that again! Also, I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a lot of good-looking people in this show.
Towards the end, where Merlin and Arthur finally confront Odin, I think that's in Fforest Fawr, where they've used that narrow gully before. But I haven't managed to visit it yet, so I don't know for sure. Again, any extra info will always be welcome. (And Arthur was so very kingly with his insistence on a truce!)
Whew!
Locations for 5x03: The Death Song of Uther Pendragon
Hello locations fans, apologies for falling behind with the posts.
How many times did you jump watching this episode? I know I had a few starts!
In terms of locations, this ep was mostly Camelot-centric, with a couple of interesting diversions.
We saw Cosmeston Medieval Village for the first time this season, standing in for a generic village somewhere in the kingdom of Camelot.
I assume that Merlin and Arthur then ride across somewhere in or near the Brecon Beacons to get to the Stones of Nemeton Nematop (spelling...?), which seemed to be mocked up from CGI and props. Interestingly, they were going for a Stonehenge feel, which is where Uther is actually supposed to be buried! So that's a nice nod to the legends.
update: You can read about 'Nemeton' as a Celtic sacred space on Wikipedia!
Hows that for a plot twist then? I can't wait to see where this series will go!
So, as far as I could tell, all the locations were the same as last week, with one exception: the sequence where Ruadan sneaks into Camelot to rescue Sefa.
(a) He walks past an exterior curved castle wall. This obviously wasn't Pierrefonds. Perhaps the base of a tower at Caerphilly...? (Or - long shot, but I'd have used this yonks ago! - the base of Castell Coch, round to the right and back of the castle.)
Working theory: Caerphilly Castle.
(b) He and Sefa are confronted by Elyan and the guards in an undercroft of some kind. Here's where I need a memory jog. It's not Neath Abbey, which is too tall. But I'm sure we've seen it before. Any ideas...?
Working theory: a new set! With thanks to one of our Locations Geeks for considering this question in detail.
Thank you in anticipation!
How awesome was the opening episode? And as always our lovely Julie has a breakdown of the locations used. Mild spoilers below!
As usual, we had the Chateau de Pierrefonds and the Cardiff sets standing in for Camelot itself in various scenes. The large green-screen room in the sets was used for Morgana's great hall, and Queen Annis's great hall as well. The scene where Merlin talks to the Dragon seemed to be on a set. Also Annis's banquet hall was a set, and the guest bedroom occupied by Arthur and Merlin.
The snowy wastelands of the north were filmed in Trefil Quarry, with fake snow. The quarry (sans snow) was also used for the scenes where Arthur, Merlin and the gang are first riding into Annis's lands; that's great continuity, as the battle scenes in ep 405 His Father's Sonwere filmed around the same cliff face.
I am assuming Caerphilly Castle was used for the exterior scenes in and around Morgana's citadel; I have to say I can't quite place the rectangular courtyard we were looking down upon, but we know they filmed there with fake snow. Also, the scene where Arthur and gang are riding out from Annis's castle seemed to be filmed at Caerphilly; however, again I didn't quite recognise the long shot of the castle walls.
update: OK, based on a tweet from Caerphilly, it seems that only the initial scene with Morgana riding in on a sled was filmed there, and other castle scenes were filmed at Raglan Castle.
The caves below Morgana's citadel were full of hunky half-clad men. Which was nice. On a second viewing I managed to notice that these scenes were filmed at Clearwell Caves, with lots of CGI to multiply the effect. I suspect that the scene where Merlin meets Lochru and is shown a vision of Camlan was also filmed at the caves; they certainly have standing pools of water in there.
Thanks to one of our stalwart Locations Geeks, we think that the place where Sefa meets Ruadan was filmed at the Cistercian abbey ruins at Margam Country Park.
Otherwise, some or all of the 'generic' forest and countryside scenes may have been filmed in forest on or near Caerphilly Mountain, where we also had reports of them filming with fake snow.
update: Our self same location geek thinks that some of the non-snowy forest scenes may have been at Margam Country Park.
Any ideas or information about any of this will be very welcome!
As I'm sure you're all aware, Merlin Series 5 kicks off tonight on BBC One at 7:45pm GMT withArthur's Bane, and I'm happy to announce that this tumblr will be swinging back into action with it. Over the course of the series we will hopefully be providing you with the episode-by-episode guide to all the locations used, as well as sharing some (non spoiler) photos from the final block of filming in Pierrefonds.
I hope you'll accept my sincerest apologies for the inactivity of this blog, and I look forward to enjoying the new adventures with you.
Ever wondered about the creator of Merlin Locations? Well, now you can read an interview with her here at the brand new fandom based webzine called Fandom Wanderers.
Be sure to check them out and let them know what you think!
I must apologise for being somewhat absent lately. I recently finished university and went straight into a full time job which requires me to commute 2 and a half hours each way. I'm currently out of the house for 13 hours Monday to Friday so I'm just getting used to juggling my time.
My aim within the next couple of weeks is to get a queue going with information and pictures relating to locations. In regards to series 5 I will be avoiding posting casting spoilers, some pictures from Pierrefonds filming may appear but I'll keep them generic. When linking to outside resources I will of course warn you if there is going to be spoilers. I'm avoiding them as much as a lot of you are!
I believe we saw the first trailer today...how exciting! Not long now!
As I'm sure you know, filming for Series 5 is currently taking place out at the Chateau de Pierrefonds. The lovely Julie from Merlin Locations is currently out there and has been uploading photos from the past week up onto flickr.
At a later date I will filter through and add some generic pictures up here to tumblr. You are of course very welcome to post spoiler photos to your blogs, but please link back to the Flickr stream in your content source!
All photos can be found *here* but be warned, here be spoilers!
Edit: Please be warned the photos on Flickr now contain some totally serious casting (guest and recurring), costume, and prop spoilers
