Dinorwig Quarry and Llyn Padarn

On screen

How Dinorwig Quarry and Llyn Padarn appears

Harrenhal, the huge, half-ruined castle in the Riverlands that Daemon Targaryen seizes, needed a landscape on an enormous scale, and the production found it in the stepped slate galleries of Dinorwig Quarry. The quarry's grey terraces, ruined huts and cliffs were combined with digital effects to create the haunted fortress. Further along the same lake, VisitBritain names Craig yr Undeb, a rocky outcrop on the shore of Llyn Padarn, as a third-season location. In the story Harrenhal stands on the shore of the Gods Eye lake in the Riverlands; in reality you are in the slate country of Snowdonia, looking across Llyn Padarn to Snowdon.

The real place

What you can visit

Dinorwig was once one of the largest slate quarries in the world. Its workings climb the side of Elidir Fawr above Llyn Padarn, and inside the mountain is the Dinorwig pumped-storage power station. The quarry itself is industrial land with restricted areas, but Padarn Country Park, on the lake shore below, has waymarked paths through woods and old quarry buildings, and the National Slate Museum at Gilfach Ddu, which is free. Craig yr Undeb is at the north-west end of the lake near Pen-y-llyn, beside the old road, and is seen from the lakeside.

Stay on public paths. The quarry galleries have sheer drops and unstable slate, and much of the quarry is private, restricted land. Do not scramble on Craig yr Undeb without local access advice.