Top Harry Potter Filming Locations

If you’ve seen the Harry Potter films, you’ve almost certainly been wowed by the breathtaking scenery and locations. All eight movies were shot at various locations throughout the United Kingdom, but here are our top seven favorite filming locations in Scotland and England, where the filmmakers brought Hogwarts Castle, the Hogwarts Express, and the rest of the Harry Potter world to life.

Harry Potter filming locations in Scotland and Wales

Glenfinnan Viaduct – Lochaber, Scotland

This 100-foot-high viaduct on the way to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry appears in several Harry Potter films. You can travel through this magical landscape in the same way that Harry and his friends did, aboard the Jacobite steam train that served as the Hogwarts Express in the film. See if you can find where Arthur Weasley’s baby blue flying Ford Anglia lands on the viaduct in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The Weasley family patriarch modified it to accommodate 8 people, 6 trunks, 2 owls, and 1 rat.

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Glencoe – Argyll, Scotland

The natural drama of the Scottish highlands provided the perfect backdrop for the first two Harry Potter films, including Quidditch matches and more. The inter-house broomstick ball games, known as Quidditch, were filmed in front of Glen Nevis. The spectacular Steall Falls in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire will be familiar to fans of the Tri-Wizard Tournament. It was recently named Scotland’s most romantic glen, and it’s also a lovely scenic place to stay, with plenty of holiday lodges and cottages. If you enjoy hill walking, it’s an excellent starting point for exploring the Highlands.

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Freshwater West – Pembrokeshire, Wales

Shell Cottage: In ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,’ this stretch of golden sand served as the setting for Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour’s Shell Cottage. When Harry entered the whimsical cottage, all he could hear was the ebb and flow of the sea. Although the cottage was demolished after filming, you can still walk in Harry and his friends’ footsteps. You can also catch surfers expertly riding waves kicked up by strong rip currents just off the beach if you time it right. The best waves in Wales can be found at this south-west facing location.

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Harry Potter filming locations in England

Bodleian Library and Christ Church College – Oxford, England

Hogwarts Library and Infirmary: Three Harry Potter films featured Oxford University’s magnificent Bodleian Library, which dates back to 1602. The hallowed institution’s medieval Duke Humfrey’s Library served as the Hogwarts library, while the elaborately vaulted Divinity School next door served as the Hogwarts hospital. Students were admitted for a variety of mishaps, including falling off broomsticks and touching a cursed opal necklace. A 10-minute walk away, Christ Church College is where we were first introduced to Hogwarts, with Harry and the other first-year wizards ascending the 16th-century stone staircase to the Great Hall.

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Warner Bros. Studios – Leavesden, England

Hogwarts and all: A model version of Hogwarts can be found at the Warner Bros. Studios Tour, just outside of London. A tour of the 1:24 scale construction, which was used for filming the exterior and aerial shots of the school and is filled with props used in the productions, is available. Treat yourself to a tankard of butterbeer, a delicious non-alcoholic beverage that tastes like shortbread and butterscotch.

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King’s Cross Station – London, England

Platform 9 ¾: The Hogwarts Express departs from King’s Cross Station’s Platform 9 ¾, which is actually the arched wall between platforms 4 and 5. Alternatively, head to the west side of the station and look for a trolley that disappears into the magical realm through a wall labeled ‘Platform 9 ¾.’ There’s a shop selling fun accessories like round Harry Potter glasses and Hufflepuff hair scrunchies to help you get into character. Outside is the Neo-Gothic facade of St Pancras, where in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, the Weasleys’ magical Ford Anglia with its invisibility powers takes off.

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Durham Cathedral – Durham, England

Professor McGonagall’s classroom: Professor McGonagall taught the young wizards how to turn animals into water goblets in Durham Cathedral’s Chapter House. Admire the magnificent cloisters that became the snow-covered quadrangle where Harry sent Hedwig the owl flying in the first film, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, it’s also where Ron Weasley succumbed to his own (seriously gross) slug vomiting curse.

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Leadenhall Market – London, England

The Leaky Cauldron: The Wizard pub, The Leaky Cauldron, was set in what is now an optometrist in Leadenhall Market’s Bull’s Head Passage. Behind the store is where Harry imagined the glittering Diagon Alley shopping street, selling spell books and potions so enticing that he wished he had eight eyes to see them. While there are no magic shops, the ornate Victorian marketplace is a great place to find Harry Potter inspired British fashion. Purchase a classic wax Barbour jacket, similar to the one worn by Ron Weasley in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Alnwick Castle – Northumberland, England

Madame Hooch’s broomstick flying lesson, seen in the first film, takes place in the medieval Alnwick Castle’s Outer Bailey. Try it yourself – broomstick training is included in the admission price. You can also watch wizardry magic shows or take a tour led by a costumed guide who will tell you behind-the-scenes stories from when the Harry Potter crew was filming. If you enjoy Downton Abbey, you should visit the castle’s dedicated exhibition. It includes photography, costumes, and props from the 2014 Christmas special, which was shot here.

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Reptile House – London Zoo, England

Charming snakes: In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry first discovered his talent for communicating with snakes at London Zoo’s Reptile House. Daniel Radcliffe speaks to an enormous Burmese python in the scene, but the enclosure filmed is actually home to the venomous black mamba, which is distinguished by its distinctive inky black mouth. However, don’t stop there. London Zoo, founded in 1828, is the world’s oldest scientific zoo and offers a wide range of incredible animal encounters. After you’ve seen the snakes, visit a butterfly paradise or get up close and personal with Kumbuka the silverback gorilla and his gang.

Lacock Abbey – Wiltshire, England

Professor Quirrell’s Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom was Lacock Abbey’s Warming Room, which housed a massive cauldron, while Professor Snape’s Potions Class was held in the Sacristy. Harry discovered the Mirror of Erised, which reveals the heart’s deepest desire, in the abbey’s Chapter House. In the midst of all that selfie magic in the lab, don’t forget to visit the abbey’s South Gallery. You can stand in the exact spot where William Henry Fox Talbot took the first photograph ever taken.

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Gloucester Cathedral – Gloucester, England

Look for Nearly Headless Nick or Moaning Myrtle, and see where Harry and Ron hid from the troll in the haunting corridors of 1,300-year-old Gloucester Cathedral, one of five Hogwarts locations. A tour guide is recommended to reveal some of the fascinating ways the cathedral had to be altered for filming. Electrical points were hidden behind panels painted to look like stone walls, and anything that revealed the set as a church was hidden. Halos on stained glass figures in the cloister windows, for example, were covered with colored plastic filter paper to blend in with the glass around it. Enter a wooden door that leads down to the old crypt, which is said to be haunted by monks from the old Gloucester monastery, for evidence of the cathedral’s ancient past.

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