Exclusive! New Set Pictures from Magheramorne Quarry

With filming in Croatia basically over, and our Spain locations wrapping up, we turn our attention again to Northern Ireland, where the show has set up not one, but two filming locations in Magheramorne Quarry. A couple of our enterprising readers got pictures from this location and sent them on.

First up, Castle Black, which you can see above. More pictures, including some very interesting shots of the new structure joining Castle Black in the Quarry, after the jump! Mild spoilery speculation ahead.

You can see here the finished structure of Castle Black, including all the covered walkways that were heavily featured in Season 4’s 360 degree battle scene. We want to thank reader Amanda, who took these shots for us.

Along the backside of the quarry you can see the layer of snow spray to give the appearance of the winter landscape. Of course, CGI will up the impressive factor of the Wall itself by several orders of magnitude by the time it hits our screens next spring.

But Castle Black isn’t the only building the production built in the Quarry for Season 5.

As you can see from these next beautiful aerial pics provided to us by reader “John,” there are two full scale set locations, directly across from one another.

Castle Black is the red arrow. There’s a large screen for filming against at the green arrow. But what interests me more is the yellow arrow.

Here’s a better shot of those green and yellow arrow areas. As you can see, the yellow arrow area is another entire castle/keep structure.

Reader Amanda provides the close ups. What exactly do you guys think this is?

It’s not Winterfell, but it’s definitely seen some hard times, and looks to be in need of serious repair. Eastwatch-by-the-sea, maybe? But wouldn’t that need some Wall attached to it? (This assumes our characters travel to Eastwatch-by-the-sea. We don’t know if that’s happening, either this season, or at all really.)

Feel free to speculate away in the comments on this new set and what the show could be filming there. I feel like wherever it is, it has to be somewhere in the North, because the exterior background wouldn’t really work for anything else.

Update: Several commenters are suggesting this could be the abandoned set from Blackwater. I thought of that, but our source for these pics called it “the new structure they built in the quarry” which is what threw me, and set me trying to figure out what “new set” this could be. But that may indeed be the right answer, and our source was incorrect about it being new.

We’re grateful to our readers for getting us these exclusive pictures. Remember, if you take a Westerosi (or Essos) vacation, and have pictures and stories to share, we want to hear from you.

• Published on 10/29/2014 at 10:00 AM CDT
• Last updated on 10/29/2014 at 10:00 AM CDT