WARWICK has a second Games of Thrones claim to fame.
Former King’s High pupil Sophie Turner has become a global star having played Sansa Stark since the show started in 2011.
And the actress, who also recently starred in Hollywood blockbuster X-Men Apocalypse, will soon share screen time with props made by a Warwick firm for the upcoming series seven set to be aired next year.
Neil and Will Henstone of Lower Cape-based firm Get Knotted – which make fenders and mooring ropes for canal barges as well as banister ropes, scramble nets and more – were commissioned to make ten, five-foot-long fenders by the set designers of the world-wide hit fantasy epic.
The rope fenders do the same job a bumper does on a car by protecting the sides of canal barges and boats from being damaged.
Normally the father and son team make fenders which are around half-a-metre in length and take less than a day to make.
But the commissioned ones took over two-days each to make and the pair were only given three-weeks notice to fulfill the order.
For the show the fenders were knotted around a length of drainage pipe to provide a firm interior, but to make them lighter than if they were made in the traditional way with a rope core. Each fender still weighed around ten stone.
All Neil and Will know is they will be painted to make them look old for the show, but have no idea beyond that how they feature in the series.
Neil told The Observer: “The penny didn’t drop immediately who the order was for until they said it was for a film set. We don’t watch the show but know it has a really big following.
“They’d spoken to other companies but the size of the fenders, and the time scale they needed them in, surprised the people they were asking.
“We put in a lot of extra hours to get the work done on time and I even persuaded the former owner of the business out of retirement to lend a hand with them.”
The completed fenders will be sent to Belfast – one of the filming locations for the series.
