The Witcher Season 2 prepares to film in one of the UK’s most beautiful ruins

3 comments

In August 2020, Netflix resumed production on The Witcher‘s anticipated second season after a five-month COVID hiatus. Series lead Henry Cavill and several other cast members have already taken to social media to celebrate their return to the set, with Umbrella Academy director Stephen Surjik at the helm. Though it isn’t clear how the virus has affected the season’s location filming (and whether or not the crew will travel to the Czech Republic and Slovakia as originally planned), The Witcher‘s location team has been hard at work scouting locations across the UK.

Perhaps the most striking location observed by the Witcher crew is a ruin in northern England called Fountains Abbey. The ancient Cistercian monastery, now in ruins, looks as though it was ripped from the pages of a fantasy novel. Take a look at the images of the location below:

Fountains Abbey was scouted by the Witcher crew several times, most recently by director Sarah O’Gorman (Cursed, The Last Kingdom). As such, the Abbey is likely to feature in the season’s third or fourth episode, which O’Gorman is in charge of.

Though we have not yet learned which scenes the crew plans to film there, two possibilities stand out above the rest. The first and most notable is Kaer Morhen, the ruined fortress Geralt’s mentor Vesemir calls home. It was there that Geralt and other witchers belonging to the School of the Wolf were trained as children, and it was there that they underwent the Trial of the Grasses.

The second and perhaps more fitting possibility is that the Abbey will portray Shaerrawedd, an Elven ruin of historical importance which appeared in one of Blood of Elves’ most haunting scenes. The ruins of Fountains Abbey would fit seamlessly with the show’s Elven aesthetic.

Other than the Abbey, the crew has scouted various locations across the UK. In the past, we were able to confirm that The Witcher is looking to film on the Scottish Isle of Skye. During the hiatus, locations across Wales and England’s Lake District have also been scouted.

At this stage, we do not know when the crew will emerge from their headquarters in Arborfield Studios and resume location filming, but it’s likely that will happen soon. Stay tuned with Redanian Intelligence for the latest updates on filming of The Witcher season two.

3 comments on “The Witcher Season 2 prepares to film in one of the UK’s most beautiful ruins”

  1. I hope this time it will play out. Because in Season 1 the choice and filming of location was lamentable. Old Cintra in Monostori citadel looked like a studio set, Kreuzenstein castle looked like a CGI-enhanced prop and Brokilon looked like a pine tree plantation and one half-expected to see park rangers in full uniform.

  2. I live really really close to Fountains Abbey. Any news on the actual dates they will be there? If you need a reporter to visit I volunteer!

    1. Thank you! That’s great to hear and much appreciated. Could you send us a message via twitter dm’s or on our contact page?

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.