Are you a Harry potter fan? While you study at EEC you can use your free time at weekends to visit these amazing spots, some of them UNESCO Worldwide Heritage sites. You will walk in the footsteps of Ron, Harry and Hermione and at the same time you will learn about British cultural gems.
This fortress is the second largest inhabited castle in the country and has been home to the Duke of Northumberland’s family, the Percys, for over 700 years.
Several exterior scenes set at Hogwarts were shot here. You can visit the inner courtyard where Harry first learned to fly on a broom and played his first game of Quidditch.
Filmmakers had a spire digitally attached to the towers of Durham Cathedral so that it could stand in for part of Hogwarts. The cathedral appears in a scene where Harry’s owl, Hedwig, takes off to deliver a message. At ground level, you can see hallways where the Boy Who Lived had whispered conversations with his friends. Quidditch was practiced on the lawn, and Professor McGonagall taught Transfiguration in the cathedral’s Chapter House.
Durham is UNESCO Worldwide Heritage site and a must visit place if are in the area. It’s a few hours’ drive from the EEC School in Manchester or you can easily get there by train.
The fan-vaulted cloisters also played Hogwarts corridors, where, most dramatically, mysterious graffiti written in blood warned that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened. Moaning Myrtle’s toilet flooded here, and Harry and Ron hid from a troll in the cathedral’s lavatorium, where monks used to wash.
The abbey was founded in the thirteenth century and dissolved by King Henry VIII in 1539. The convent became a country house as the Sharington and Talbot families made it their home, although the medieval cloisters exist today as testament to the house’s monastic past.
In 1835, William Henry Fox Talbot invented the world’s first photographic negative at the abbey. Now the Fox Talbot Museum at Lacock tells his story as well as hosting a variety of changing photography exhibitions.
The abbey’s wooded grounds are the perfect destination for taking a relaxed walk all year round.
Harry was selected for Gryffindor’s high-flying Quidditch team in the hallways, and Professor Snape’s Potions classroom can be found in the sacristy. In the Chapter House, Harry discovered the Mirror of Erised, the mysterious object that reveals the deepest desires of those who gaze into it.
It’s perhaps fitting that Britain’s most famous university should have a direct connection with the wizarding world’smost famous school. The dining hall at Oxford’s Christ Church College served as the Great Hall at Hogwarts early in the film series, before a duplicate set was constructed.
While Muggles can’t catch the Hogwarts Express from Platform 9¾ at London’s
King’s Cross Station, you can take a ride on the train’s movie stand-in. The Jacobite‘s summer service runs between Fort William and Mallaig in northwest Scotland. For Potter fans the highlight is crossing the 21-arched single-track Glenfinnan Viaduct.
Built in 1926, the historic Reptile House at the London Zoo has a facade covered in animal carvings. Inside, you’ll see lizards, crocodiles, tortoises, and snakes. What you won’t see: a Burmese python like the one that chats up Harry Potter in the first book and film of the series.
One of the U.K.’s most popular family attractions is the Warner Bros. Studio Tour in London – The Making of Harry Potter (located in Leavesden, Hertfordshire, very close to London). Here, visitors get a chance to go behind-the-scenes where the iconic films were made. Feast your eyes on detailed sets, elaborate costumes, props, and some things the cameras never even showed.
We are sure that will be an unforgettable experience to share with friends and family when you go back to your country. Enjoy and share your experience with us through comments to this blogpost.
