Game of Thrones returns to Saintfield estate for season 7 

Filming has resumed and we’re already hearing reports of shooting on location in Northern Ireland, beyond the walls of the studio. Local fans have encountered

production crews in a familiar place over the past day:

@WatchersOTWall Filming currently going on just outside Saintfield. The crew’s base is just round the corner from my house.

Ah would you look at who’s back in town #GoT pic.twitter.com/qW9D5MC5Ae

As for the location, we understand that the shooting is taking place on the same private estate that hosted last year’s filming of the Battle of the Bastards. The entrance is apparently off the road between Saintfield and Carryduff. We’ve heard that it’s nothing to do with the battle;  a godswood scene is being shot there currently.

With Kit Harington, Sophie Turner, and Isaac Hempstead Wright all in Belfast at the moment, a Stark seems likeliest to be visiting the godswood. Bran was just beyond the wall in the season finale, by a heart tree. Could he try to contact his siblings through the weirnet? Is Jon or Sansa visiting the tree (again) as Ned once did?

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I dreamed last night that Bran had returned to Winterfell. One day he touched a weirwood tree, told Jon to hold his hand and showed him how Lyanna and Rhaegar fell in love and how he was born. Lame? I don’t know but I really wish he finds out about his parents in S7.

Oh my can you imagine Jon or Sansa nonchalantly touching the tree and their eyes going white like Bran’s and being sucked into a vision??!! That would scare the crap out of someone lol! I love the godswood scenes…so pretty!

Ooh!! I wonder how Jon will find out who he really is. Hopefully it’s a good experience for him and not Littlefinger ruining everything…again! I really want Sansa to find out that he betrayed Ned from the very beginning so she can get revenge for everything. Maybe even using her assassin sister. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have Arya reopen his wound from Brandon but finish the job?! I would say Sansa but I don’t see her getting bloody herself.

Actually, it’s very likely than Bran could be able to bring other people with him on a vision… the 3ED was somehow able to bring Bran along (although he was already gifted with greenseing and he was helped by what seemed to be the mother of all Heart Trees), and Bran is supposedly way more powerful than him (or will be when he controls it more)… so yeah, I think it’s very likely how he’ll prove his true parentage to Jon !

And I think it’s fair to assume a little time will have passed when season 7 begins… so we should at least meet Bran at Castle Black at first (I’d love a scene with Bran, Meera and Dolorous Edd), and will quickly be at Winterfell after that, so a reunion scene with him, Jon and Sansa is very much in the cards sooner rather than later imo !

Bran was just north of the Wall in the finale. I imagine he will return to Winterfell fairly early on in the season.

I’m glad Sue made clear it’s not another battle (I immediately thought ‘battle’ when I read Saintfield) but rather a scene in the Godswood. I’m gonna go balls to the wall and speculate it’s Bran sharing a scene with Jon and Sansa, perhaps telling them some hard truths in the place that has always felt safe to them. I hope more details leak.

i think it will be jon sansa as no warging abilities since she lost her wolf very soon and lose the very close bond her siblings share with their animals…

Also I am really curious if Bran’s vision will pick up where it left off and if there are more secrets that will be revealed. There were two women besides Lyanna in the room when Ned burst in the door and we never saw the face of the second woman (we only saw the face of the one who handed the baby to Ned). The other woman may not be important but then again…is she? She is another person who knows the truth…just saying. I wonder if they will go back to that scene and replay it without the name cut out. Hmmmm…have forever to think about it!

Perhaps a Bran flashback to a secret North-style wedding of R + L? It wouldn’t have happened at Winterfell, but they could just shoot the Heart Tree from a different angle (with a new carved face) to simulate a different Godswood. I would dearly love a visit to the Isle of Faces, and a flashback there might foreshadow Bran and/or Meera having a mission to go there. I feel sure that place has an important connection to Howland’s history.

Empire…it could be. But who is the second woman? We have heard that Wylla was there (or at least nursed Jon) but never heard anything of a second woman in the birthing room.

i think the other may just be a random nurse…but seriously i don’t know…

The second woman there was a young Jaqen H’ghar in disguise. 😉

I would love to see Bran do some tree wizard communication. I was hoping for the “Theon…” whisper last season but maybe they’ll do something similar in s7 with Jon and/or Sansa.

I’m ready for Bran to arrive at Winterfell!! I’m so curious to see how he’ll interact with Jon now that he knows about R+L=J. I can easily see Bran arrive in episode 2 (3 at the latest).

I’m ready for Bran to arrive at Winterfell!! I’m so curious to see how he’ll interact with Jon now that he knows about R+L=J. I can easily see Bran arrive in episode 2 (3 at the latest).

Agree – I see a 701 scene with Bran and Meera at Castle Black, possibly one in 702 with them travelling south, and then them arriving at Winterfell either at the end of 702 or the beginning of 703. I can’t wait to see Bran and Edd interact – it will be interesting to see if Bran recognizes Edd as someone who fought alongside Jon at Craster’s in season 4.

I can’t wait for Bran to go to Winterfell.That poor boy has been through so much he deserves to meet his family again.I also suspect that weirwood tree will become Bran’s headquarter.Much better that the cave imo lol.And somebody please build him a wheelchair.He needs one.

Oh my can you imagine Jon or Sansa nonchalantly touching the tree and their eyes going white like Bran’s and being sucked into a vision??!!

Oh that would be cool. But this late in the game, showing that they had similar powers would add to compleity at a time when they are trying tobring eve4ryththing togetherd. Or not…..

I kind of assumed that one of them was Wylla, but perhaps I shouldn’t have. Who was a close friend of Lyanna’s, do we know? We know that Elia’s bestie was Ashara Dayne, but did Lyanna have any gal pals? She was such a tomboy that she may not have had any girlfriends. Perhaps, as you say, it was just servants. Wouldn’t it be funny if it was Ellaria? Or a younger Olenna? Or maybe Wylla is Meera’s mom? 😉

Yeah that’s what I’m saying! It could be any of them. In the books Wylla was a wet nurse for the Daynes so maybe she was brought there by Arthur to assist in the birth. They never recovered Ashara’s body from her suicide so I think that she is hiding out with Howland and that Meera is a Stark probably Brandon’s! Maybe Howland hasn’t left the neck because he is still hiding her as Jyanna. I don’t know it could be a huge stretch…but think how Ned would handle the “bastard” kids of both his siblings and at the same time. Obviously the kids would recognize if their mom had purple eyes but Howland knows magic so maybe they glamoured them 😝

I think any more Tower of Joy will be shown from Howland Reed’s memory of what happened after Lyanna died and Ned telling Howland who Jon’s father is…. Littlefinger will be telling Sansa that Jon Snow is not Ned’s bastard. Sansa will find Howland Reed and ask him who Jon’s real father is.

Godswood? How exciting. S7 is so far away still:( Anyway, I really hope that it’s Bran and Jon at the Godswood, but to be honest at this stage of the game it could be anything. It could be Jon and Sansa talking, not unlike Ned and Cat in S1. To say I will be really disappointed if Bran isn’t at Winterfell by E3 is an understatement. I really want Jon to know he is a Stark AND a Targaryen!! I don’t think it will change him in a big way…but I could see him dismayed to find out he isn’t Ned’s son…so many months to wait…thankfully we have hype!!

I bet it’s going to be like the actual Ned and Catelyn picture you posted to start the post off, but with Jon and Sansa instead. Why not? They did everything else they could to make them like Ned and Cat 2.0 in season 6.

I can imagine Bran having numerous scenes in the Godswood. Apart of Jon’s parentage revelation, he will have to keep an eye on the Night’s King too. There were reports about the scheduled filming in Iceland involving 6 cast members, if I remember correctly, and though Iceland can server as the Vale too, beyond the Wall is still more likely. So my guess is that Bran will go on some virtual reconnaisance mission in his green-dreems and probably take other people with him (I can’t imagine Jon going or sending someone else beyond the Wall for real – it’s too dangerous now).

I feel very strongly that the Isle of Face will play a pivotal role in the closing of the series. Book 1 mentions it several times as a play deeply connected to weir trees, children of the forest, and green men…..would be cool to glimpse any of these story elements.

I feel very strongly that the Isle of Faces will play a pivotal role in the closing of the series. Book 1 mentions it several times as a play deeply connected to weir trees, children of the forest, and green men…..would be cool to glimpse any of these story elements.

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