Many viewers who tuned into watch the final episode of Vera on Thursday night were left with the same question – where could they visit The Dark Wives statues that played a key role in the episode.
In the opening moments of the Vera finale, also called The Dark Wives and taking its name from the recent novel from North East author Ann Cleeves, the body of young student Josh Worseton was found close to the statues, with Brenda Blethyn’s DCI Stanhope and her team from Northumberland & City Police called into investigate.
With the three stone structures seen in shot on numerous occasions in the opening minutes of the two hour show, many people watching at home were left curious as to where exactly they were and if they could visit them. Well, sadly for any Vera fans hoping to add them to their list of things they can go and see that are associated with the hit drama, the statues aren’t actually real.
While your eyes weren’t deceiving you and they could definitely be seen as Vera looked up at them and then again as her colleagues Steph and Mark were assessing the situation, they were created by ITV and aren’t a real landmark.
The huge props stood for nearly two weeks during filming on Vera series 14 last summer, although, given that they were pretty much in ‘the middle of nowhere’ on Rothley Crags, Northumberland, they went unnoticed by many people.
Detailing the work that went into them, Vera’s executive producer explained: “You expect most people to say they will do it with CGI. But we’ve been very lucky with our production designer Jonathan Tolson – he’s a local chap as well. So we set him the task. He got his fantastic art department team together along with the rigging department and after a few recces they came up with a solution as to how to do it. So hats off to them because they did it and they stayed up there in some quite strong winds.”
Jonathan and his team clearly did a great job, as it’s also been revealed that lead actress Brenda presumed they must have been “ancient” landmarks when she first set eyes on them during filming.