The 'Jamestown' set was so convincing. It had been raining for a few days before we started filming, and when we turned up, we were knee-high in mud. There were pigs and goats everywhere, too, which meant the whole place smelled pretty ripe. It definitely helped us enter the 'Jamestown' world immediately.
The University of Timbuktu never existed. The only thing that existed in Timbuktu was a small mud hut.
Some of the stuff in Season 3 on 'Game of Thrones' - the amount of mud I had to eat, not intentionally but by accident - was pretty tough.