That Time When My Family Visited A Location For MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL (Before It Was A Location For Said Film)

In the early ‘70s, my parents, my brother, and I, lived for a year or so in Cambridge, England. During our time there, we visited many landmarks in Britain and Scotland including Doune Castle, a 14th century stronghold that has the distinction of being the principal location in the 1975 comedy classic, MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL.

The Terry Gillam and Terry Jones-directed movie has long been one of my favorite films, possibly the movie I’ve seen the most throughout my life, but the thing is – when my family dropped by to check the place out, it was a year before the Monty Python group shot their second feature there. Since the film’s release, Doune Castle has been largely rebranded by the hugely successful comedy, with a gift shop full of HOLY GRAIL memorabilia, and for years even hosted an annual Monty Python Day.

So, I’ll share a few pics from when I went to Doune Castle before going to Doune Castle was cool. This is a picture, taken by my father; of my mother, me, and my brother, on the castle’s rampart, roughly where John Cleese’s French Taunter character was situated in one of the movie’s funniest scenes.

I can only assume that this picture of Doune Castle’s courtyard was taken from where we were on the wall.

HOLY GRAIL fans will most likely recognize it as where the Swamp Castle wedding party that turned into a bloodbath took place.

The members of Monty Python were forced to use Doune Castle as the set for more than several different Castles throughout the film because they lost their permission to use a handful of other castles for locations.

Why, you may ask? Because as Co-Director Terry Gilliam told theguardian.com: “immediately before filming started the National Trust cancelled our access to the castles. They said we wouldn’t ‘respect the dignity of the fabric of the buildings.’ These places had dungeons and blood on the walls for God’s sake! They’ve stood for hundreds of years against hordes of invaders, what were we going to do - make people laugh at castles?”

HOLY GRAIL wasn’t the only time that Doune Castle was used as a Medievel location. It first appeared in the 1952 historical epic IVANHOE, and also its 1996 BBC adaptation.

It has also been featured in episodes of the TV series Outlander, and in the mega popular HBO series Game of Thrones, where it served as Winterfell (it was briefly renamed that in honor of the series’ final season).

But for me, Doune Castle will always be known as Camelot, Swamp Castle, Castle Anthrax, and where the Trojan Rabbit met its fate in HOLY GRAIL.

Maybe I’ll find my way back there some day.

More later...