Westeros

While production has been carrying on at a good pace—I’ve heard everything’s pretty much proceeding to schedule—there has been little tidbits coming, here and there, from Northern Ireland locals who’ve spotted filming ... or, better yet, have managed to get a few photos in. The most interesting photos relate to a much-missed location from prior seasons of Game of Thrones: Riverrun, the seat of House Tully. Other than a very brief mention at the end of season 2, Riverrun has largely been out of the picture… but not this year, not with the casting of Edmure and Brynden Tully.

The first set of pictures to appear were from WyvernWood, whose Flickr gallery features a jetty at Quoile that has been decorated with blue-and-red leaping trout (representing the House Tully arms) ... and with a nearby boat that’s a minor spoiler.

Later the same week, word started appearing on Twitter that Gosford Castle—a Norman Revival castle built in the 19th century, and recently turned into a luxury apartment complex—and its grounds of Gosford Forest Park were in use by the production:

The first look at it, combined with the filming at the Qouille Jetty, made us first suspect that this was going to be Riverrun… which seems to be confirmed by this photo of Tully banners on the grounds:

In the novels, Riverrun’s reddish walls—due to sandstone—and its triangular shape are regularly mentioned, but this doesn’t matter very much in the grand scheme of things. The thing that makes it stand out, however, is the fact that its walls are hard up against the Tumblestone and Red Fork rivers, and that the third wall has a deep moat that can be flooded, turning the castle into an island. Obviously, Gosford Castle is nowhere near the water, but if they use the exteriors of the castle at all—and I suspect they will—CG can go a long way to fix that.