theories | The Castle of Fyrien
Many of us have been puzzling over the distinctive Castle of Fyrien which featured in episode 307 as Cenred and Morgause's hideout. The Castle is located on an island in the sea, joined to the mainland via a causeway - and also via a secret tunnel that only Arthur knew about.
The Castle is where we first meet Gwen's brother Elyan. Cenred and Morgause have kidnapped him, and then also Gwen. Their dastardly scheme is to force Gwen to bring Arthur to the Castle in exchange for her brother's life. Arthur of course turns the trap into a rescue mission, though is thwarted along the way by Morgana's treachery.
Which is all very well, but a Locations Geek has to wonder where and how the Castle was actually filmed! It was pretty clear there was CGI involved in the establishing shots of the Castle, but they seemed to be drawing on some real locations-based footage.
The Castle and its situation readily call to mind the 'real life' examples of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France and St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, England. I poured over various photos of these places that I found online, and over Google Maps. However, neither had the right shaped island nor the right shaped buildings, especially when you take the empty seascape behind the Castle into account.
Then a fellow named Richard Gascoyne commented on the website, suggesting it might be Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island in Northumberland, England. Given the shape of the island and buildings, this looked more like it, but I felt it still wasn't the whole story.
Someone - and I'm ashamed to say I've since lost track of who of course it was the awesome pakafe - then suggested that the Worm's Head peninsula at Rhossili in Swansea, Wales was somehow involved. I drove out there on my recent Locations Trip, and took some photos (which I've since lost {sniff}), and started to come up with a working theory. Which I present to you for your thoughts and feedback…
the screen captures
We get two longshots of the Castle, which I've copied here. The first time we see it is a closer shot than the second.
Breaking down that second shot, we get a number of areas, all cunningly put together with CGI.
What I'm particularly interested in here are:
the locations
Taking the easy one first… The foreground (4 green) was filmed on the road leading up away from the Chateau de Pierrefonds. This was identified by pakafe, who cleverly realised how very many locations that road has stood in for!
The cliffs (3 yellow) are, I believe, the caves and cliff face at St Donat's Bay. This was used as the location for where Arthur and the team enter the secret tunnels, so that's some kick-ass continuity.
Here's a screen capture of that later scene, for comparison's sake. If you squint at the second screen capture above (or is it only my old eyes?) you can see the dark shapes of the cave mouths in the cliff face.
The peninsula and the causeway attaching it to the mainland (1 blue) are, I think, the first part of the Worm's Head peninsula. Given that I've lost my own photos of it, I went searching on the net, and found these ones on Flickr, by Artur Zawlocki and by Mark Turner. They have the tide at about the right level. See how the landward end of it becomes a crescent of rock when the tide is high? That can be seen in the screen capture. Also, the sloping sides and then the long flat top all fit quite neatly with our fictional island. The 'spit' of rock that in real life leads further out to sea is, I think, used to create the fictional causeway.
If I'm right, that means the Worm's Head is used from the same sort of angle that we see in Artur and Mark's photos, but the seaward end is used as the landward end, and vice versa! As if that's not confusing enough, you can walk across natural rock to the Worm's Head at low tide, and if you go visiting or browsing you'll find it looks quite different at such times.
(photo by Artur Zawlocki (zahvwatskee) on Flickr)
(photo by Mark Turner on Flickr)
Lastly, the conical-shaped rocks and castle (2 pink) are a little harder to be sure of. But I think Richard was on the right track when he suggested Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island. The steeply sloping sides of the rock seem very like indeed.
(photo by Russ Hamer on Wikimedia Commons)
But what puts me off here is that the buildings are a little more rounded, and there seems to be small towers with turrets. In fact, it puts me in mind of Carcassonne - though I hasten to add that the Castle of Fyrien itself could be made up of CGI'd bits of any number of medieval castles and chateaus. Still… there's something about the round towers in the curtain wall, and the turreted towers, that makes me think that Carcassonne is at least in the right ballpark.
(photo by Minto on Wikimedia Commons)
Looking at the screen captures more generally now, I believe the sea and sky probably belong to the Worm's Head peninsula - so they started with footage of that, and built up the scenes from there. That's just a guess, but it has the most 'interaction' with the water, which is moving.
The shoreline and fore- to mid-ground of the first screen capture might well also belong with Worm's Head. It's hard to find a photo taken from the right angle and with the tide so far in. Mark Turner's photo shows something of the mainland that could be right for the shore, in a different (less green) season.
That leaves, in the second screen capture, the roughly-grassed hills to the left of the mid-ground, and the mountains to the right. I doubt we'll ever identify them exactly, but let's keep them on the 'unknown' list, just in case!
over to you…
What do you think? Are these good theories or a little shaky, or do you think it's all more complicated still?
The Castle is where we first meet Gwen's brother Elyan. Cenred and Morgause have kidnapped him, and then also Gwen. Their dastardly scheme is to force Gwen to bring Arthur to the Castle in exchange for her brother's life. Arthur of course turns the trap into a rescue mission, though is thwarted along the way by Morgana's treachery.
Which is all very well, but a Locations Geek has to wonder where and how the Castle was actually filmed! It was pretty clear there was CGI involved in the establishing shots of the Castle, but they seemed to be drawing on some real locations-based footage.
The Castle and its situation readily call to mind the 'real life' examples of Mont Saint-Michel in Normandy, France and St Michael's Mount in Cornwall, England. I poured over various photos of these places that I found online, and over Google Maps. However, neither had the right shaped island nor the right shaped buildings, especially when you take the empty seascape behind the Castle into account.
Then a fellow named Richard Gascoyne commented on the website, suggesting it might be Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island in Northumberland, England. Given the shape of the island and buildings, this looked more like it, but I felt it still wasn't the whole story.
Someone - and I'm ashamed to say I've since lost track of who of course it was the awesome pakafe - then suggested that the Worm's Head peninsula at Rhossili in Swansea, Wales was somehow involved. I drove out there on my recent Locations Trip, and took some photos (which I've since lost {sniff}), and started to come up with a working theory. Which I present to you for your thoughts and feedback…
the screen captures
We get two longshots of the Castle, which I've copied here. The first time we see it is a closer shot than the second.
Breaking down that second shot, we get a number of areas, all cunningly put together with CGI.
What I'm particularly interested in here are:
- 1 (marked in blue): The peninsula itself and the causeway.
- 2 (pink): The 'cone' of rocks and castle.
- 3 (yellow): The cliffs.
- 4 (green): The foreground, with our four young heroes riding along a road.
the locations
Taking the easy one first… The foreground (4 green) was filmed on the road leading up away from the Chateau de Pierrefonds. This was identified by pakafe, who cleverly realised how very many locations that road has stood in for!
The cliffs (3 yellow) are, I believe, the caves and cliff face at St Donat's Bay. This was used as the location for where Arthur and the team enter the secret tunnels, so that's some kick-ass continuity.
Here's a screen capture of that later scene, for comparison's sake. If you squint at the second screen capture above (or is it only my old eyes?) you can see the dark shapes of the cave mouths in the cliff face.
The peninsula and the causeway attaching it to the mainland (1 blue) are, I think, the first part of the Worm's Head peninsula. Given that I've lost my own photos of it, I went searching on the net, and found these ones on Flickr, by Artur Zawlocki and by Mark Turner. They have the tide at about the right level. See how the landward end of it becomes a crescent of rock when the tide is high? That can be seen in the screen capture. Also, the sloping sides and then the long flat top all fit quite neatly with our fictional island. The 'spit' of rock that in real life leads further out to sea is, I think, used to create the fictional causeway.
If I'm right, that means the Worm's Head is used from the same sort of angle that we see in Artur and Mark's photos, but the seaward end is used as the landward end, and vice versa! As if that's not confusing enough, you can walk across natural rock to the Worm's Head at low tide, and if you go visiting or browsing you'll find it looks quite different at such times.
(photo by Artur Zawlocki (zahvwatskee) on Flickr)
(photo by Mark Turner on Flickr)
Lastly, the conical-shaped rocks and castle (2 pink) are a little harder to be sure of. But I think Richard was on the right track when he suggested Lindisfarne Castle on Holy Island. The steeply sloping sides of the rock seem very like indeed.
(photo by Russ Hamer on Wikimedia Commons)
But what puts me off here is that the buildings are a little more rounded, and there seems to be small towers with turrets. In fact, it puts me in mind of Carcassonne - though I hasten to add that the Castle of Fyrien itself could be made up of CGI'd bits of any number of medieval castles and chateaus. Still… there's something about the round towers in the curtain wall, and the turreted towers, that makes me think that Carcassonne is at least in the right ballpark.
(photo by Minto on Wikimedia Commons)
Looking at the screen captures more generally now, I believe the sea and sky probably belong to the Worm's Head peninsula - so they started with footage of that, and built up the scenes from there. That's just a guess, but it has the most 'interaction' with the water, which is moving.
The shoreline and fore- to mid-ground of the first screen capture might well also belong with Worm's Head. It's hard to find a photo taken from the right angle and with the tide so far in. Mark Turner's photo shows something of the mainland that could be right for the shore, in a different (less green) season.
That leaves, in the second screen capture, the roughly-grassed hills to the left of the mid-ground, and the mountains to the right. I doubt we'll ever identify them exactly, but let's keep them on the 'unknown' list, just in case!
over to you…
What do you think? Are these good theories or a little shaky, or do you think it's all more complicated still?