Matt Smith (Daemon Targaryen) films House of the Dragon season 3 in Wales

Cameras have been rolling on the third season of House of the Dragon for months now. There's been a lot of work done on a major action sequence called the Battle of the Gullet that will occur very early in the season. We've also gotten looks at impressive sets built for King's Landing and the town of Tumbleton, a new location we'll be visiting. But that's just the start.

Recently, shooting started up in Dinorwig Quarry in Wales, where the show will be doing a lot of location work. In season 2, parts of Wales stood in for the Vale as well as the area around the crumbling castle of Harrenhal in the Riverlands. Daemon Targaryen (Matt Smith) was at Harrenhal when we left him in season 2, so it's no shock to hear that he's in Wales filming new stuff, as reported by House the Dragons.

We can't know exactly what the cast and crew are shooting in the area, but we're getting lots of interesting images to pick thorough. The most interesting may be these shots of a ruined village. Our best guess is that it's what remains of the military encampment Daemon set up outside Harrenhal. If you've read George R.R. Martin's book Fire & Blood, you know that Daemon is about to leave the castle just as his nephew Aemond Targaryen (Ewan Mitchell) is marching towards it. Without getting into too many spoilers, we'll be spending more time there:

House the Dragons has plenty of images to go around, including these pictures of a long stone wall. I can see that standing in for the walls of Harrnehal, the Eyrie, or maybe another castle somewhere in the Seven Kingdoms:

More walls are going up in the Welsh village of Penmon:

The cast and crew are on the move:

And let us now forget that the beautiful Welsh countryside provides many stunning backdrops without the need to do a thing:

Finally, the crew has constructed a big 'ol rock, for what purpose we know not:

I expect that Phoebe Campbell, who plays Rhaena Targaryen, may spend some time filming in Wales. When last we left Rheana, she'd stumbled on a wild dragon living in the Vale. The Vale is filmed in Wales so to Wales Campbell will (likely) go.

It'll be a while before we get to see the fruits of these labors. Expect House of the Dragon season 3 to premiere on HBO and HBO Max sometime in 2026.

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