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House of the Dragon , the long-awaited fantasy series set 200 years before Game of Thrones and centered around House Targaryen, is finally available exclusively on Sky and streaming only on NOW. Those who have already seen the first episode, which arrived last August 22, will have realized that they are facing an impressive production characterized by meticulous attention to detail and the choice of breathtaking locations that certainly do not go unnoticed. The Seven Kingdoms of Westeros , the medieval fantasy world born from the mind of George RR Martin , is the backdrop to a gripping family story based on the novel Fire and Blood by the same author. To recreate them, this epic new fantasy series started in England and – just like the original series did – then moved to other European locations as well. Let ‘s find out where House of the Dragon was filmed and what are the main filming locations .
House of the Dragon: The main locations of the series
The headquarters of the filming of House of the Dragon is located in England, precisely at the Leavesden Studios in Watford , just north of London. In these studios, which in the past have already hosted major Warner Bros. productions such as the Harry Potter saga films and those of Mission Impossible , all the internal sets of the series have been created.
Cornwall and other UK sets
The stunning Cornish coast , with its stretches of white beaches and towering cliffs overlooking the sea, served as the backdrop for several scenes from House of the Dragon . From the news circulating online and reported in particular by the well-informed website Winter is Coming during the months of production, we know that the island of St Michael’s Mount , one of the jewels of the region, was used for the shooting . Right here was placed the castle of Driftmark , a fortress that is located on an island in the Bay of Blackwater that is the seat of House Velaryon , one of the most powerful houses we know in House of the Dragon. In one of the promotional photos of the series, the one in which we see Lord Corlys Velaryon on a cliff, we recognize another place in Cornwall: Kynance Cove , a cove that the National Trust organization for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty has included among the English places to be protected and valued . Here the Stepstones Islands – a territory located in the southern part of the Narrow Sea and which we know to be central from the book Fire and Blood – were reproduced and a vast camp of the Velaryon army was rebuilt.
Several scenes were also shot in the picturesque Holywell Beach , the beach with golden sand that can also be seen in one of the promotional images that portrays Daemon Targaryen and Rhaenyra Targaryen ( Matt Smith and Emma D’Arcy , pictured below). Other shooting locations in England were Derbyshire , in the north of the country, and Surrey , a region south west of London where, specifically in Aldershot, a large set for a tournament scene was built.
The castles and medieval fortresses of Portugal and Spain
From Portuguese sources, we also know that one of the most evocative locations that hosted the filming of House of the Dragon in Portugal was the Castle of Monsanto (pictured below), a medieval fortress now in ruins characterized by the presence of huge boulders of granite incorporated into the architecture of the surrounding village. In addition, production has returned to the Spanish cities of Trujillo and Cáceres . The former boasts some of the most fascinating Roman ruins in Spain while the latter, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is famous for its monumental walls and stone buildings dating back to the 16th century; already during the making of Game of Thrones, these two locations had been used to shoot some scenes set in King’s Landing and Old Town.
