Destinations for Harry Potter Fans

Hogwarts was built mostly on soundstages at Leavesden, outside London, and the Warner Bros. Studio Tour is where to see it: the Great Hall, Diagon Alley and the scale model of the castle. But the films borrowed real buildings too, and most of them are still open to visitors.

In London, Platform 9¾ is a trolley in the wall at King's Cross, though the films shot those scenes between platforms 4 and 5. Leadenhall Market stood in for the streets around the Leaky Cauldron. In the West End, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has played at the Palace Theatre since 2016, picking up the story nineteen years on. Since October 2026 it has been one show instead of two. In Oxford, McGonagall meets the first years on the staircase at Christ Church, and the Divinity School played the infirmary, below the library where Harry slips into the Restricted Section under his invisibility cloak.

Hogwarts' corridors are cloisters. Gloucester Cathedral's fan-vaulted ones appear in three films, Lacock Abbey's hold the Mirror of Erised, and Durham Cathedral's are where Harry lets Hedwig fly. Alnwick Castle is the outside of the school, and still teaches broomstick lessons on the lawn where Harry had his. In the Highlands, the Jacobite steam train crosses the Glenfinnan Viaduct as the Hogwarts Express.

The books have their own places. J.K. Rowling finished the last one in room 552 of the Balmoral in Edinburgh, and wrote so on a bust in the room. Not every story holds up, though. Porto's Livraria Lello was sold for years as the staircase that inspired Hogwarts, until Rowling said in 2020 that she had never been inside. It's still worth the ticket.

And then there's the version you can walk around in. Universal Orlando has built the Wizarding World into all three of its parks: Hogsmeade and Hogwarts Castle at Islands of Adventure, Diagon Alley and Gringotts at Universal Studios Florida, with the Hogwarts Express running between them, and the Ministry of Magic at Epic Universe since 2025.