This Wednesday season 2 filming location has a devastating haunted past

A staircase in a chilling castle is the site of a tragedy that haunts to this day.

Wednesday season 2 has finally dropped today on Netflix, reuniting fans of the mega hit with the ever-magnificent Jenna Ortega as the titular teen goth.

Before part one was released, Metro had the chance to visit Ireland’s gothic Charleville Castle, one of the filming locations for the creepy new series.

There, I heard the gasp-inducing tale of the little girl Harriet, who died there over 160 years ago, but is said to still haunt the halls.

The second season of Wednesday was filmed in a variety of new 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, Tim Burton – and us, as I was treated to a visit.

As I walked through the mammoth wooden double doors into Charleville Castle, it was instantly clear why this was the ideal spot to unspool Wednesday’s tale of mystery and mayhem.

The rooms are moody (getting the right lighting to take pictures for this article was a task) and filled with antique furniture, which made it easy to imagine it as the site of a gruesome death.

We were soon told that the castle is a lore-laden place where things are said to go bump in the night. By things, we mean creepy ghost children.

I didn’t experience anything too spooky while walking through the lofty castle – unless you count getting a glimpse inside the library’s secret passageway, which features in the show.

However, it’s easy to imagine how the shadowy corners could prey on a scaredy-cat. I would not want to stay the night.

One of the spots that was used to film scenes for Wednesday season two was Harriet’s staircase, a gloomy spot that takes on even gloomier significance when we’re told an eight-year-old girl tragically fell to her death there.

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.

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 scraping sounds of furniture being moved in rooms that stand empty. (Yikes.) 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 – again, I would not want to stay the night. 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 hijinks, 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.

‘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 that she isn’t scared of the ghosts (‘They’re friendly’) and speaks very tenderly of late Harriet.

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 of 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). 

The castle was one of the locations that 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.

The reason for the swap? Locations manager Maria O’Connor, who’s been in the screen locations biz for over 30 years and worked with Wednesday’s showrunners Alfred Gough and Miles Millar on Into The Badlands, said they chose Ireland because the creators have loved working there in the past.

The country isn’t spoiled for choice of gothic castles, so Charleville was an easy decision. As were many of the picks, Maria said, since the Edward Scissorhands director isn’t one to hum and haw.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it sounds like Tim’s company is not of the dull variety.

When scouting out the building that would become Nevermore Academy’s exterior (with an ornate new canopy digitally plonked on top in post-production) Tim tasked Maria with scrambling up ladders to get onto the roof for a proper looksee.

This building sits within Powerscourt Estate, the other chief location used, beside Ashford Studios for the interior scenes, and owned by the Slazenger family (of the sporting gear).

A mossy foliage-covered graveyard was one of the spots, with smoke machines pumping away during moody night shoots, just inches from the Slazenger family’s private graveyard in the corner.

The 19-hectare County Wicklow estate has swanky gardens, a dramatic nearby waterfall and a 36-hole golf course – which avid golfer Catherine Zeta Jones made full use of while filming.

There was less of a requirement for this part to fit into the mould of what had gone before, since it serves as the home of new cast addition Joanna Lumley’s character Hester. 

Whether the location changes will be picked up by ardent Wednesday fandom (of which suggested names online have included Woes, Outcasts and Thursdays – because it follows Wednesday…) remains to be seen. The episodes we have seen certainly look more lush than previously, but County Wicklow is referred to as the Garden of Ireland after all. 

The attention to detail has certainly been paid, down to replicating the exact same tree layout as that shot in Romania. Not that Maria overly hypes how hard it all was, simply describing it as ‘tricky’. 

But Wednesday is now in Ireland to stay. Filming for the third season kicks off this November, and the Addams family car has stayed in situ in the meantime. As has the Nevermore Academy chandelier, with head-sized orbs of light that hang over the main staircase in Charleville Castle. It was a gift from the production. Although you almost feel they’ve done enough. 

The castle might have claims of otherworldly visitations, but if anything, that will only make the curious Wednesday loyalists – who were devout enough to visit Romania in droves – even more eager to take a look in. 

A version of this article was originally published on August 4.

Wednesday season 2 launches on August 6, with the second part arriving on September 3.

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