Doctor Who – Location Visit

A day trip (23rd June 2018) to Powis Castle in North Wales on a scorching hot day revealed the most beautiful gardens I’ve ever seen. Basing a trip out solely to find out what colour the gate used in the Season 18 Tom Baker Doctor Who story – Warriors’ Gate amused me no end. I discovered it was a glorious blue and had only recently been restored. Subsequently I discovered this article on it afterwards.

I checked with a senior member of staff at Powis that the gate was the same colour as it had been in 1980. One of the most random questions I am sure they had heard for a while!

For one scene in Warrior’s Gate, the Long Gallery is used but today inside the castle there are many privately owned artifacts and photography is not allowed. However, there are many colour pictures of this room available for purchase online here

I can’t believe, whilst staying Blackpool, I turned the TV on to see the tail end of a feature on the very location I’d be visiting Bargain Hunt [BBC] – 16 June 2018.

I discovered a rather yellowing postcard picture online (below) which was invaluable for the early stages of my colourisation. The two vases nearest on the left had been moved temporarily much further down the room when I visited…

I must admit, I accidentally took a photo of them, whilst, erm.. checking a ermm… a text message. (I think I got away with that! lol)

I knew from the start that this would be my most unnecessary colourisation, as the scenes were always intended to be Black and White. I’ll call it my Ted Turner moment. I chose a colour scheme to make the scenes look painted which I think pays off and it sits well with the scenes around it. I was tempted to reverse the effect and have The Doctor appear in Black and White too. I may be tempted to do that at some point.

I took as many photos and videos at Powis as possible before my phone battery finally gave up due to a 2 metre USB lead not charging it properly on the car journey.

Two locations were used for the B/W photography of Warriors’ Gate at Powis and Rousham. Sadly, my budget didn’t stretch to visit Rousham, so a creative commons friendly image is used below for the comparison pictures.

At Rousham House and Park, Gardens, the sculpture is of a Lion and Horse dated 1741, created by Peter Scheemaker, Photography of Rousham is by Joseph Manca from the Department of Art History, Rice University: http://hdl.handle.net/1911/86926

There are a couple of other statues at Powis, that could have been used in Warrior’s Gate. Well, maybe one…

As an added bonus, in the gift shop at Powis you can buy some very unofficial and unexpected Warriors’ Gate branded Jam!

With thanks to the staff of Powis Castle and Gardens for helping with the research to make my video possible and to the indispensable www.doctorwholocations.net

Music for my Youtube Warrior’s Gate presentation of Doctor Who is ©BBC Music ©Chris Zabriskie, published by You’ve Been a Wonderful Laugh Track (ASCAP), and shared freely worldwide via Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licensing.