Once you’re trying to conjure up a world to persuade people who magic exists (and has finished for hundreds of years), it’s little shock England’s oldest college was high of the record to encourage the wizarding world – and for followers of the Boy Who Lived, taking a Harry Potter strolling tour of Oxford is unmissable.
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Not solely did Oxford’s honey-coloured gothic structure encourage the film-makers behind the Harry Potter films, the town was used as a filming location all through – one of many few locations which was, aside from the movie units at Leavesden and numerous websites in London.
And when you can wander the streets solo on a self-guided Harry Potter tour of Oxford, paying for entry to the universities and libraries with hyperlinks to the movies, you’ll be taught much more on a guided Oxford Harry Potter strolling tour (with youngsters or with out).
The Muggles promoting tickets for our specific Harry Potter stroll in Oxford labored for Footprints Excursions – however we have been reliably knowledgeable by our tour information that she herself was a witch.
Rummaging in her bag, she pulled out scarves in all the home colors earlier than asking for volunteers for every (and sternly informing us that it could be very boring if everybody needed to be Gryffindor).
Whereas my 11-year-old was channelling Ravenclaw that day, the invention that she was sporting her Hufflepuff T-shirt – and the truth that no-one else needed to put on the yellow & black scarf – meant she stepped up for workforce form.
After which promptly unleashed her aggressive facet throughout our 90-minute wander round Oxford, answering Harry Potter trivia questions to come back away with 80 home factors and a sherbet lemon as her reward.
Alongside the best way, our information threw in a complete string of different faces, recognizing every kind of particulars across the metropolis which you wouldn’t discover in case you wandered solo.
For starters, declaring her pal Hugo whose makes an attempt at transfiguration had gone unsuitable (you may mistake him for an Anthony Gormley statue in case you didn’t know the reality), revealing the prank to place visitors cones on all the enormous heads by the Sheldonian (a joke the Weasley twins could be happy with), and displaying us the slim alleyway to the Turf Tavern.
A favorite consuming spot of the forged and crew throughout filming – the grownup ones at the least! – you can have wandered in right here to seek out Dumbledore enjoyable with a pint, as if it have been the Three Broomsticks. Because the Turf Tavern dates again to 1300, it could hardly be misplaced in Hogsmeade both.
Whether or not this slim cut-through actually impressed Knockturn Alley is tough to say, however with an indication saying ‘an training in intoxication’, it’s a lesson in maintaining your eyes peeled.
Our first predominant cease was New Faculty – no factors for declaring that it’s actually not so new now, based in 1379.
For extra issues to do in Oxford with youngsters, take a look at my high picks
Whereas the eating corridor right here wasn’t used for any precise Harry Potter filming, this was the primary corridor to make use of the set-up of the excessive desk on the head of the room and the opposite tables lined up at proper angles. Quickly copied by the opposite Oxford college schools, it will definitely grew to become the mannequin for the tables within the Nice Corridor at Hogwarts.
Preserve an eye fixed out for the older portraits on the nook of the room too, whose eyes appear to observe you across the room as you stroll – a part of the inspiration for Hogwarts’ shifting portraits.
The gorgeous chapel (no photographs allowed inside) hides some implausible beasts as effectively within the misericords, plus you may see a lion within the unique stained glass home windows – in all probability not Gryffindor’s admittedly.
The Harry Potter filming location at New Faculty which followers will recognise although are the beautiful cloisters and grassy courtyard.
These characteristic in a number of scenes from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Hearth, together with a row between Harry and Ron, a gathering between Harry and Cedric, and most memorably, across the tree within the nook the place Draco Malfoy will get become a ferret.
With that comfortable picture in our minds, we strolled again in direction of the Bodleian library. One of many oldest libraries in Europe, the buildings close to the Sheldonian theatre are related to the Radcliffe Digital camera close by by a complete string of underground passageways, with books secretly shuttling backwards and forwards beneath your toes.
The books chained up inside right here have been for their very own safety from college students – who may in any other case have been tempted to steal them again within the 14th century, when a single quantity might value 2,000 years’ common wages – quite than to guard the scholars, as within the Restricted part at Hogwarts.
Nonetheless a working library, Duke Humfrey’s Library is the oldest studying room: it’s named after the primary Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV, who donated his spectacular assortment of 281 books to the college on his dying – the college solely had round 20 on the time.
Little did he know that his descendant round six generations on, Henry VIII, would destroy all bar three of them. Or that film-makers would later use it for a film about magic – within the Thinker’s Stone, when Harry makes use of his invisibility cloak to enter the restricted part, it’s Duke Humfrey’s library he walks round.
Whilst you can solely go to on an official tour of the Bodleian, we might go to the library’s different predominant location on our Harry Potter strolling tour of Oxford – the Divinity Faculty, which appeared because the infirmary, and because the place the place Professor McGonagall dances with Ron in Goblet of Hearth, cunningly shot to cover the intricate ceiling so it’s much less clearly the identical room.
Don’t miss the statue exterior: the dashing Earl of Pembroke has his personal head firmly hooked up, however the garments and swagger helped encourage Practically Headless Nick.
Harry Potter isn’t the one literary hyperlinks to Oxford, after all, and as we strolled to our subsequent vacation spot, we bought an opportunity to peek at Narnia too – or at the least the lamp publish talked about in CS Lewis’s writings (which nonetheless has a white bulb to imitate the gaslight as soon as used) and the door with a lion’s head and two golden fauns on.
From Narnia, we moved on to tales about Alice in Wonderland as we arrived at Christ Church Faculty – right here Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson, a mathematician on the school) advised tales to the Dean’s younger daughter, Alice Liddell.
Ultimately, she persuaded him to write down her favorite down, and Wonderland, with its unforgettable characters was saved from being forgotten.
If you wish to go inside Christ Church, this Harry Potter tour visits the skin solely, however you should buy tickets to discover the faculty – effectively price doing upfront, as these promote out, so there’s no assure you may choose them up on the day.
The Nice Corridor right here additionally impressed the Nice Corridor at Hogwarts, though not one of the scenes have been truly shot right here. Nevertheless the spectacular Bodley staircase was used a number of instances within the first two movies.
At which level, we needed to return reluctantly to the actual world.
With a number of the historical past of Oxford, in addition to its different literary hyperlinks, all wrapped up with the Harry Potter highlights, it’s an effective way for followers to discover – and to find extra in regards to the metropolis in a straightforward pleasing method, good in case you’re on the lookout for a Harry Potter strolling tour of Oxford with youngsters.
For just a few extra Harry Potter websites in Oxford, head to the Oxford Museum of Pure Historical past, which I’ve been visiting with my daughter since she was a preschooler – as soon as house to a stuffed Dodo, the administrators visited to get inspiration from its eclectic mixture of artefacts. It’s also possible to see the Oxford Story Museum, with its magic widespread room (in addition to getting a style of Narnia, Wonderland and Lyra’s Oxford right here)
Harry Potter strolling tour Oxford: Have to know
You’ll discover a number of Harry Potter excursions of Oxford out there, but it surely’s price checking which of the Harry Potter websites they go to in your Oxford strolling tour – not all will take you contained in the Bodleian library for example.
I selected the Footprints Oxford strolling tour because it wasn’t too lengthy – formally 90 minutes, however in all probability ended up being about 10 minutes longer – and for the enjoyable Harry Potter quiz, in addition to as a result of it visited the important thing Harry Potter filming areas.
Go to Oxford Excursions additionally has a two hour Harry Potter Tour together with Divinity Faculty entry, and a quiz, however not entry to New Faculty or Christ Church school.
In addition they have an extended (and costlier) Harry Potter tour visiting Christ Church, though that part within the school is with an audio information and also you don’t go to New Faculty.
If you happen to’re on the lookout for a free strolling tour of Oxford, these 90-minute strolling excursions do go to a number of the Harry Potter filming areas but it surely’s not a devoted Harry Potter tour, so it’s a distinct expertise.
If you happen to’re decided to trace down each final one of many Harry Potter areas within the UK, there are a pair extra close to Oxford too – together with a tree on the property at Blenheim Palace, which seems in Order of the Phoenix, and the beautiful village of Lacock, round an hour away
Disclosure: This publish accommodates affiliate hyperlinks – any purchases you make are unaffected however I could obtain a small fee. I booked this Harry Potter strolling tour Oxford myself.
Photographs copyright MummyTravels