Moodboard #4 - Waverley Abbey

Waverley Abbey is a location that we've had our eyes on for a while as a potential filming location. It is located in Farnham, which isn't too far away - about 30 minutes by car or an hour by train - either way it shouldn't take too long to get there. It's a very beautiful location; it was the first Cistercian Abbey in England and was destroyed in the dissolution of the monasteries. There are several parts to the ruins, with a few small walls and a few buildings with their roofs mostly intact. Around the Abbey there are woods, so the location has the feeling of being completely in the wild and overcome by nature. There is also a really cool tree that has grown over some of the ruins and its roots are amazing. With the sun in the right place the location can look even more dazzling. To make matters better, the ruins are fully accessible to the general public. They are free to climb on and there is no security at all, so we can basically do whatever we want there - including filming shootouts. This may be a location that we'll have to visit on an Inset day, as there can sometimes be quite a number of people there.

Another great thing about Waverley Abbey is that there are some more amazing locations just on its doorstep. Just down the road from the Abbey are some spectacular woods that have been used for chase sequences in the penultimate Harry Potter film and Sherlock Holmes 2, and have been used for battle sequences in Gladiator and Robin Hood. Clearly these woods are worth filming in, and we will probably try to create our own chase sequence in them, trusting on the choice of such big name films. In Farnham town there is Farnham Castle, and although the castle itself is a bit of a boring location as it is literally just some walls with a flat plateau on the top, the gardens around the castle are spectacular. We probably won't use these gardens for our film, as they're not really what we're looking for, but they're a possibility if we realise we want a scene in a garden.