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Harry Potter and the Magical Kingdom

By Craig Lancto

Hogwarts, the fictional School of Witchcraft and Wizardry that sprang full-blown from the brow of J.K. Rowling, is more fantastic for the English traveler who can visit the less than fictional castle, cloisters, and grounds that appear as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films, and embrace the historical significance of each.

Our pilgrimage to Hogwarts began in London’s King’s Cross Station, the usual departure point for Hogwarts-bound students.

Inside, we see the pedestrian bridge that Harry and his giant friend Hagrid cross in The Sorcerer’s Stone, stretching over the tracks in the main station. Platform 9¾, however, is nowhere to be seen.

Potter fans will recall that access to the Hogwarts Express at Platform 9¾ is through what appears to Muggles—non-magical folk—as the solid pier of an archway. The magical entrance to Platform 9¾ was actually filmed at Platform 4, but clueless pilgrims might well be disorientated by a sign attached to the exterior wall of the annex housing tracks 9, 10, and 11, marking that spot as the entrance to Platform 9¾.

Not to worry, though. According to The Harry Potter Lexicon ( www.hp-lexicon.org ), Rowling, who was living in Manchester when she wrote the scene, said that she actually was picturing Euston Station when she described Platform 9¾ , hence the bit of confusion.

Ineligible for the Hogwarts Express we chose to drive from London to Hogwarts, parts of which are spread across England like an enchanted jigsaw puzzle.

To illustrate: In one scene toward the end of The Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry, Ron, and their pal Hermoine, run from the grounds in front of Alnwick Castle’s twin towers to Hagrid’s hut (constructed for the film), near the “Dark Forest,” Black Park in Buckinghamshire, about three hundred miles away–—with the castle still in view behind the youngsters as they talk to Hagrid. They then leave Hagrid to rush into the office of Professor McGonagall, the head of Gryffindor house, to which Harry, Ron, and Hermoine are assigned. Although the exterior of McGonagall’s office is shot at Alnwick, her classroom is the Chapter House at Durham Cathedral in the north of England, about 45 miles from Alnwick. In three consecutive scenes, the youngsters cover about 600 miles among three locations that represent much of the cinematic Hogwarts.

We began with the cloisters in which paralyzed victims are discovered, along with a bloody warning scrawled on the walls, in a Chamber of Horrors. For these we had to return to the Norman Conquest and the elegant Gloucester Cathedral.

The cathedral cloisters frequently appear as Hogwarts corridors, most notably when the girls’ lavatory flooded (for which a protective flooring was laid over the original). The magnificent ceilings are the world’s first example of fan-vaulting. A tiny entry off the southeast corner was transformed into the entrance to Gryffindor’s common room.

In 1089, William the Conqueror ordered the cathedral built on the site of the seventh century St. Peter’s Abbey established by St. Osric, whose tomb in the cathedral is next to Edward II’s.

After his father’s death, Edward III ordered construction of the alabaster effigy and Caen-stone Gothic canopy of his tomb in the north ambulatory. The pillars were cut away so that pilgrims – who provided a considerable source of revenue for the Cathedral’s construction - could walk around the tomb.

A stained glass window commemorates the cathedral’s 1216 coronation of nine-year-old Henry III, the only monarch since William I to be was crowned outside of Westminster Abbey.

Nearby, the painted wooden effigy of Robert II, Duke of Normandy, eldest son of William I (Conqueror), is a colorful contrast to its monochromatic surroundings. Robert, who had rebelled against his father in 1077, redeemed himself in 1080 by re-establishing order in the County of Durham, imposing Norman authority over the King of Scotland.

According to legend, William I issued orders for the Domesday Book, an accounting of all of the population and property in England, in the charter house at Gloucester cathedral.

In 1087, William was mortally injured in Mantes while fighting the French king over the Vexin, a territory between Normandy and Paris. William died a few days later in Rouen. At his death he gave Normandy to Robert and England to Robert’s younger brother, William II. After a half-dozen years in which he warred with William II (Rufus), Robert put Normandy up as collateral for a loan from William and went on the First Crusade (1096 -1100), where he so distinguished himself in battle that he was offered the command of Jerusalem, which he declined. When William II died in hunting accident, Henry I, William I’s youngest son, (who was among the hunting party) inherited the throne amid rumors that he was involved in his brother’s mishap. It was time for Robert to invade England (1101) again. When he failed, he returned to Normandy, where he was unable to control his barons. In 1105, his brother, Henry I, took advantage of the instability, invading Normandy, taking his older brother captive, and imprisoning him at Castle Cardiff, where he died in 1134.

John Stafford-Smith, the organist who composed the music for what would become the Star-Spangled Banner, is also interred in the cathedral, which explains the American flag flying near his burial site.

Not noticeable in the movie, but well worth a look, is the beautiful and graceful lierne vaulting, also believed to be the first of its kind, in the south transept and choir vault. And, at 72’ by 34’, the cathedral’s Crecy window (1360), is believed to be the largest stained glass window in Europe.

Regretfully leaving Gloucester, we drive the relatively short distance to Oxford University.

When Professor McGonagall greets first-year students on the front steps before leading them into the dining hall at Hogwarts, she is standing atop the sixteenth-century staircase that leads to the Great Hall at Christ Church, Oxford.   Hogwarts’ hall replicates that at Christ Church in which Charles I held parliament during the English Civil War. Literary and political connections to this college are abundant, but we should note that this is the Hall in which librarian and mathematics teacher Charles Dodson took his meals after punting on the Isis with Alice Liddell and her sisters, for whom he wrote the Alice books in which he recorded the tales he told on their excursions, under the pen name Lewis Carroll, which he had adopted as a reporter for his student newspaper.

Among the Great Hall portraits are those of John Locke, W.H. Auden, John Wesley, William Gladstone and the dozen other prime ministers educated at the college, and Henry VIII, who established the college as University College when the original founder, Cardinal Wolsey, fell from grace. There is also a portrait of pacifist William Penn in armor. A visitor might wonder whether these ghosts inspired those who flit through the Great Hall at Hogwarts.

The Great Hall, indeed all of Christ Church—also known as The House—reveals many of the surroundings that Carroll worked into the stories he invented for Dean Liddell’s children. Should you visit, be sure to talk with the porters, those wonderful men in the funny hats, who can enrich your visit with the knowledge they have garnered during their service. Christ Church is unique among colleges in having a Cathedral on the grounds.

Other school interiors were filmed in Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

Among those who have studied at Christ Church are the current Duke of Northumberland and his father, the eleventh Duke, whose home is Alnwick Castle.

Alnwick Castle is about 250 miles northeast of Oxford, roughly twenty miles south of Scotland and forty miles north of Newcastle. The Hogwarts we see in long shots is Alnwick enhanced with towers and additions by graphic artists, but while some close-up shots have added ornate towers, others show the castle as it looks today.

Unlike Hogwarts, Alnwick spreads across elevated ground, not craggy cliffs, and there is no lake at Alnwick, although the fourth Duke had the river Aln smoothed out better to reflect the image of his castle at about the same time he had homes cleared away to make the meadows beyond more aesthetically pleasing.

In such scenes as when Professor Hootch introduces her students to fundamentals of flying brooms and the rudiments of quidditch, the high-flying, competitive, and dangerous school sport, the castle background is unretouched. When he inadvertently takes flight, class klutz Neville Longbottom is snagged from his runaway broom by one of the many martial figures atop the castle’s barbican. The actual figures are of varying ages, most from the nineteenth century, with some erected specifically for the Potter movies.

Alnwick, the second largest inhabited castle in England, has been home to the Percy family for the past 700 years. The oldest part of the castle dates to the eleventh century. One of the twin towers into which Hagrid drags a Christmas tree was the birthplace of Shakespeare’s Harry “Hotspur” Percy (Henry IV), in 1366.

The Percy family has been deeply immersed in English politics from the time that William de Percy arrived with William Conqueror in 1066.

Through its long history, Alnwick Castle has often been either the staging area for battles against Scotland–or part of Scotland. The Percy’s were loyal to Scottish monarchs about as often as English ones. Within England, Percy loyalties also fluctuated depending on which monarch and which Percy was involved.

The second Earl, for example, a close friend of Henry V, was killed in the War of the Roses, but Richard II accused the fourth Earl, Hotspur’s father, of treason when he refused to respond to the King’s summons. Richard’s accusation was realized when the Earl and his fellow barons deposed Richard in favor of Henry IV. Henry VI sent the sixth Earl to arrest Cardinal Wolsey, which Shakespeare portrays in Henry VI.

Saint Thomas Percy, the seventh Earl, was beatified after Elizabeth I had him beheaded for refusing to disavow his Catholic faith.  His brother, the eighth Earl, was imprisoned in the Tower of London on three occasions, the third of which ended with his being found shot through the heart.

In 1605, Thomas Percy, constable for his cousin the ninth Earl, was killed for his part in the notorious Gunpowder Plot. His innocent cousin, loyal to James I whose ascension he had supported, was imprisoned in the Tower for seventeen years.

In the early eighteenth century, Hugh Smithson, first Duke of Northumberland, married into the family and changed his name to Percy, although the original surname survives in the Washington institution founded by James Smithson, his illegitimate son, for the "increase and diffusion of knowledge.” The Duke undertook extensive renovation of the castle and added to the number of medieval figures on the rooftops.

Alnwick’s medieval exterior has made it a popular film setting. It has been used in filming parts of Becket with Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton, Ivanhoe starring Anthony Andrews and Sam Neill, Mary Queen of Scots with Vanessa Redgrave, and Robin Hood Prince of Thieves with Kevin Costner. It was also used in filming the popular “Black Adder” television series starring Rowan Atkinson.

When the Percys bought Alnwick, it had been in de Vescy hands for two centuries. Under Edward II (whom we met at Gloucester), the first Prince of Wales and a weak and largely unpopular king, the last of the line, John de Vescy, died at the Battle of Bannockburn (1314), which defeat resulted in four hundred years of Scottish independence. Henry, the first Lord Percy of Alnwick, was among the barons who killed Edward’s hated favorite, Piers Gaveston.

When Edward was murdered at Berkeley Castle where his wife, Isabella (whom he called a She-Wolf) and her intimate friend, Robert Mortimer, had imprisoned him after invading England, he was buried in Gloucester Cathedral (as later was Isabella’s heart).

Gloucester does not have exclusive claim to Hogwarts’ cloisters, though. Many of the hallway scenes are from the Benedictine monastery at Durham Cathedral in the north, near Alnwick. While the Gloucester cloisters are remarkable for their vaulted ceilings and glass windows, the Gothic windows in Durham’s cloisters are open to the elements. The garth at the center of the monastery’s cloisters is seen as a snowy setting where quidditch players meet in the Chamber of Horrors, and, as noted earlier, the monastery’s chapter house serves as Professor McGonagall’s classroom.

A word of caution to visitors, though: We were chagrined to learn that vehicles require a special permit to drive to the vicinity of Durham Cathedral, and photographing the interior is permitted only with costly licenses that must be obtained well in advance. We would likely have skipped the visit if we had been aware of the restrictions. However, one marvelous surprise in this least hospitable of the Hogwarts venues is the tomb of the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735), the Benedictine monk whose Ecclesiastical History of England has provided detailed information for generations of scholars. St. Bede also wrote a biography of St. Cuthbert, a monk from Lindesfarne Island, and Durham’s patron saint, whose remains were reported to be uncorrupted when his casket was opened in 1104, before being reburied behind the high altar at the south end of the cathedral –with the head of the martyred King, St. Oswald.

Harry Potter’s Hogwarts is magical site, but the actual sites used in filming are filled with England’s past and a curious linkage of one to the next. Like so much in England, they offer old-world beauty, a rich past, and now, the aura of the magic of film.

On the Internet:

The Percy family and Alnwick Castle: www.alnwickcastle.com.

Gloucester Cathedral: www.gloucestercathedral.uk.com

The Harry Potter Lexicon: www.hp-lexicon.org

Durham Cathedral: www.dur.ac.uk/Law/c_tour/tour.html

Christ Church, Oxford: www.visitchristchurch.net

Photos: Craig Lancto

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