Game of Thrones: Winterfell and the Wall in Northern Ireland

The series opens at the far end of the world, and the ground it was shot on is a basalt escarpment called Knock Dhu, high above the small village of Cairncastle a few miles from Larne. Beyond the Wall a Night's Watch patrol is cut down by White Walkers; one man escapes, is caught, and Ned Stark executes him on this hillside for desertion. Cairncastle also supplied some of Winterfell's exterior scenes in the 2010 shoot.

Location precision: The escarpment is not separately mapped; the pin marks Cairncastle, the village below it.

Visitor guidance: Above Cairncastle village, which lies inland from Ballygally, a few miles from Larne.

Ned Stark's home is the one thing the first season could not do without, and it is a National Trust estate near Strangford in County Down, which replaced Doune Castle in Scotland for the 2010 shoot. Here Robert Baratheon arrives to recruit Ned as Hand of the King and to betroth Sansa to his heir Joffrey — the visit that sets the whole series in motion. The house is deliberately two-faced: Palladian with a pediment on the entrance side, Georgian Gothic with battlements opposite. Its farmyard still holds a tower house built as a defence in 1610.

Location precision: The production used the estate for Winterfell's exterior; the pin marks Castle Ward house.

Visitor guidance: Open to the public, with 332 hectares of landscaped gardens, a fortified tower house, Victorian laundry and a working corn mill.

Castle Black was a set dropped into a hole in the ground. In an abandoned limestone quarry five miles south of Larne the production built a large section of the fortress — courtyard, ravenry, mess hall and barracks — and used the quarry's own stone face as the ice wall that shields Westeros, with a working lift to carry rangers to the top and white paint around it to pass for ice. Hardhome, and battlements for the Battle of the Blackwater, were built here too. It is private, crumbling land today with no public access.

Location precision: The built set covered only part of the old quarry; the pin marks Magheramorne.

Winterfell's godswood stood on the Saintfield estate, in a village halfway between Belfast and Downpatrick. In the season two premiere Bran visits the godswood with the wildling Osha after a prophetic dream, notices a red comet and calls it an omen of victory; Osha tells him it means the dragons have returned. The estate was used again at the very end of the series: the battle of Winterfell in the eighth season was shot over eleven weeks and 55 night shoots at sets in Moneyglass, Saintfield and Belfast.

Location precision: The filmed wood stood on a private estate; the pin marks the village of Saintfield.

Roughly 250 years old, the Dark Hedges are 150 metres of beech tunnel on Bregagh Road between Armoy and Stranocum, planted about 1775 along the approach to a new house called Gracehill. The trees stood in for the Kingsroad, and the second-season premiere ends on them: a caravan heads north along the road, leaves Arya at Winterfell and carries Gendry and the other passengers on towards Castle Black. Two trees were destroyed by Storm Gertrude in January 2016, and the road has been closed to traffic since 2017 to protect the roots.

Visitor guidance: A traffic ban has been in place on Bregagh Road since 30 October 2017 to protect the roots.

Down a very small, narrow, steep road below the village of Ballintoy, a fishing harbour became Pyke, the Greyjoys' seat of power on the Iron Islands; the village above doubled as the town of Lordsport. The second season's second episode takes Theon home: he tries to seduce a young woman who turns out to be his sister Yara, then presents Robb's offer to his father Balon, who refuses it, wanting to take his crown himself with Yara at the helm. The crew filmed there on 18, 19 and 22 August 2011.

Location precision: The scenes were shot at the harbour a kilometre below the village; the pin marks Ballintoy.

Visitor guidance: The harbour is at the foot of Knocksaughey hill; the village above it has shops, restaurants and rooms.

When the second season needed Winterfell to be bigger, a new set was built at the Moneyglass Estate near Toome, and the finale's Winterfell scenes were filmed here too. In the sixth episode comes the season's ugliest scene: Theon Greyjoy takes the castle, promises Bran he will not harm the household, then personally beheads Ser Rodrik Cassel after Rodrik spits on him. Moneyglass came back at the very end, as one of the locations for the eighth season's battle of Winterfell, "The Long Night".

Location precision: The Winterfell set was a build on the estate, since taken down; the pin marks Moneyglass.