The new season of Wednesday hasn’t even aired yet, but Ireland’s Charleville Castle has already welcomed avid fans of the Netflix show on a gothic pilgrimage to see the sets.
The second season – the first part of which arrives this Wednesday (!) –delivers the fandom a whole new batch of locations, after the production moved from Romania to Ireland. Albeit, with Romanian actor Victor Dorobanțu as the scene-stealing Thing still scuttling in tow.
Among the Irish locations scouted out for the new bundle of episodes is the gothic Grade I listed fortress Charleville, in County Offaly, whose crow and bat topped corridors have been walked by Jenna Ortega, Tim Burton – and us, as was treated to a visit.
In many ways Charleville Castle is the ideal place to unspool Wednesday’s tale of mystery, mayhem and murder, because it’s a lore-laden place itself, where things are said to go bump in the night.
By things, we mean creepy ghost children. One of the spots the production used to film scenes was Harriet’s staircase, a gloomy spot that takes on even gloomier significance when we’re told an 8-year-old girl tragically fell to her death there.
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The story goes that the youngest daughter of the third Earl of Charleville, who once upon a time owned the castle, was asked by her governess to go upstairs and wash her hands before a meal. On the way back down the gloomy three-story staircase, Harriet is said to have clambered up onto the bannister to slide down.
She slipped and fell to her death on the flagstone tiles below. A brass guard was subsequently installed on the bannister to stop those who might have a similar idea.
Since then, the staircase has become one of the castle’s hotspots for so-called activity, of the paranormal kind. The goings-ons are straight out of a horror film. Bonnie Vance, 75, who helped form a charitable trust to restore the castle after it fell into disrepair and lives there with her son, said she has only seen the ghosts ‘occasionally’, but often hears them.
What is it that she’s heard? Children giggling, voices talking, the scrapping sounds of furniture being moved in rooms that stand empty. She later learned the jangle of children playing was coming from a room that had once been a nursery.
Guests at the castle have heard who-knows-what move in the night and asked to switch rooms – which makes you wonder why they might have wanted to stay in the first place. Most of the spectral racket takes place in the small hours from 2am to 3am.
One unassuming bedroom – an imposing bed decked out in scarlet red covers, next to arched windows that don’t come with curtains attached – is supposed to be a hub of ghoulish hinjinks, with a door that has been reported to lock people in and out at will. Bonnie shut the door when we were inside, leaving everyone with a brief but queasy feeling before we were released.
‘My official statement on the ghosts is I don’t believe in them,’ says Bonnie’s son Jonathan, the only one of her three children who stuck around to help manage the castle, ‘but I won’t say it loud enough for them to hear me.’
Bonnie insists she isn’t scared of the ghosts (‘They’re friendly’) and speaks very tenderly of late Harriet. We didn’t experience anything too spooky while walking through the lofty castle – unless you count getting a glimpse inside the library’s secret passageway – but it’s easy to imagine how the shadowy corners could prey on a scaredy-cat at night.
What the Wednesday cast made of all these eerie tales, we don’t know. They were spared an overnight stay, instead setting up in the nearby town Tullamore. But Ortega and co did get on very well with the castle’s black cat, Mirka, who was known to take up residence on their hot water bottles. (The castle has no central heating and hit-and-miss power supplies).
Ireland's most haunted houses
- Leap Castle. Many were locked up and executed at Leap Castle and it now has a reputation that puts it in the running for most haunted house of all time. Said to be haunted by a demon with a decaying face, among a few others. Eek.
- The Hell Fire ClubThis antiquated hunting lodge operated under a permissive "anything goes" philosophy, its aristocratic members known to experiment with black magic and even attempt to summon Satan. Given its reputation, this isn't exactly shocking.
- Loftus Hall. Built in County Wexford during the Black Death, this mansion is also a spot said to have been visited by Satan and legend goes he still lurks there now.
The castle was one of the locations Wednesday director Tim Burton signed off on, as the production had the double duty this season of not only finding a whole new roster of Irish locations, but ones that would pass for their predecessors in Romania.
Why the change of scenery? Maria O'Connor, a locations manager with more than three decades of experience in the film industry, having previously collaborated with Wednesday's executive producers Alfred Gough and Miles Millar on *Into The Badlands*, explained that Ireland was selected due to the creators' positive experiences filming there before.
The UK isn't exactly overflowing with gothic castles, so choosing Charleville Castle was a no-brainer. Maria mentioned that a lot of their selections were straightforward, given that the...Edward ScissorhandsThe director is known for getting straight to the point.
It probably won't shock you to hear that Tim's firm doesn't seem to be boring. When searching for the location that would serve as the outside of Nevermore Academy (a fancy new awning was digitally added later), Tim asked Maria to climb ladders to get up on the roof for a good look.
This building is located on the Powerscourt Estate, which, along with Ashford Studios (where the interior shots were filmed), served as a primary filming location. The estate is owned by the Slazenger family, known for their sports equipment. One of the filming locations was a graveyard covered in mossy plants, where smoke machines were used extensively during atmospheric night shoots, just a stone's throw from the Slazenger family's private burial ground in the corner.
This posh County Wicklow property, spanning 19 hectares, boasts elegant gardens, a striking waterfall close by, and a 36-hole golf course – a dream for any keen golfer.Catherine Zeta JonesIt was fully exploited during filming. There was less need for this section to conform to established patterns, as it primarily serves as the setting for the new cast member.Joanna Lumley’s character Hester.
It's still up in the air whether die-hard Wednesday fans (who've jokingly suggested names like Woes, Outcasts, and Thursdays online, playing on the show's title) will notice the location switch-up. The episodes we've previewed definitely seem more visually rich than before, but then again, County Wicklow *is* known as the Garden of Ireland for good reason.
The meticulousness is evident, right down to recreating the precise tree arrangement seen in the Romanian scene. Maria doesn't exaggerate the difficulty involved, merely calling it ‘tricky’.
Wednesday has now made Ireland its permanent home. The cameras will start rolling for the third series this November, and the Addams family vehicle has remained where it is in the interim. So too has the Nevermore Academy chandelier, featuring light orbs the size of heads, which hangs above the main staircase in Charleville Castle. It was a present from the production team. Although, one might think they've already contributed plenty.
The castle may be rumoured to have paranormal activity, but if anything, that'll just make the dedicated Wednesday fans – who were committed enough to travel to Romania en masse – even keener to have a gander.
The second series of *Wednesday* will premiere on 6th August, with the concluding episodes being released on 3rd September.
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