London Day Two: Harry Potter Tour -- Oxford

We made our way back toward London with a stop at Oxford, the university town. Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and is believed to have existed in some form in 1096 and developed rapidly from 1167, when Henry II banned English students from attending the University of Paris. Oxford University is essentially a federation: it comprises over forty self-governing colleges and halls, along with a central administration.

The next film location we visited was the 15th-century Divinity School.

Some say this room, the university's oldest teaching room, was used in four of the Harry Potter movies as the hospital wing,.....

....but I can only say for sure that it was used in the Sorcerer's Stone.

The room was also used in Goblet of Fire as the place where Professor McGonagall teaches Griffindor House how to dance in preparation for the....

....."well-mannered frivolity" of the Yule Ball.

The ceiling of the school is a masterpiece of Perpendicular Gothic architecture. It has an elaborate system of fan vaults with 455 bosses. Each boss indicates a religious symbol, or a coast of arms, or many other things. The ceiling was altered in the films to remove any religious symbolism.

We next visited the cloister of New College used in Goblet of Fire where...

...Harry sees other Hogwarts students wearing "Potter Stinks" badges.

Our guide took a series of pictures of us walking through the cloister, at angles used in the film and I thought our acting was outstanding.

 

Simply scene-stealing

Harry crosses the quad to make his way to talk to...

Hufflepuff House's pride and joy, Cedric Diggory. After warning Cedric about the first task, Harry then...

....has a heated exchange with a jealous Ron Weasley at this archway.

At that point, Draco Malfoy jumps out of this tree to confront Harry and without warning is...

....transformed into a ferret by Mad-Eye Moody.

Sneak preview of a Harry Potter sequel, Harry Potter and the Tour of Wonders.

One last look at the cloister

Our last stop at Oxford was the college of Christ Church. The college is the setting for parts of Brideshead Revisited, as well as Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and was used in the filming of the controversial children's movie The Golden Compass.

Entering Christ Church College

This beautiful staircase was used in Sorcercer's Stone when...

...Professor McGonagall greets the new first years to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

A precocious first-year with her escort

The striking ceiling above the professor

Laying down the rules to the new pupils

The staircase is seen in Chamber of Secrets when...

....Harry and Ron try to sneak into Hogwarts after having flown the blue Ford Anglia to Hogwarts and also when....

....Harry enters Tom Riddles diary and sees the body of a student being taken away.

Dumbledore is then seen at the top of the staircase asking, "Is there something you wish to tell me, Tom?"

The door at the top of the staircase leads into....

...the Great Hall. The Hall was all sent for dinner, as it does serve as a dining hall.

As far as we could tell, no portraits were moving.

The head table

The room was full of tourists taking photos

Producers of the first Harry Potter film wanted to use this exact room as the Great Hall, but quickly came to the realization that four rows of tables would not fit. They ended up re-creating the room in their studios. Our guide swore, however, that you do see this exact room for just a few seconds as the first years file in to be sorted into their houses.

Sun dial on the side of Christ Church

Leaving Christ Church

Our guide pointed out this McDonald's as we left Oxford. It had to be built in Tudor style to comply with architectural codes.

London Day Two: Harry Potter Tour -- Lacock Pt. 3

Making our way to a local pub for lunch, we passed by the Red Lion again and the hideous blue cherry picker was moved back just enough for me to snap this picture. I was no longer quite so vexed.

A lovely house located at the end of the street, complete with a horse at the left

Professor McGonagall was keeping close tabs on us.

We had a tasty lunch at The George Inn, established in 1361. Yes, you read that properly. 1361.

One of the pub's claims to fame is the fireplace and dog wheel. The fireplace houses a rotating roasting spit which was once powered by a specially-trained dog known as a 'Turnspit' who continuously ran inside the wooden wheel. This particular wheel is the last in England still in its original position.

Many collages of movies filmed here were on display, including one of The Half-Blood Prince.

The last stop in Lacock was Professor Slughorn's house, featured in the beginning of The Half Blood Prince.

London Day Two: Harry Potter Tour--Lacock Pt. 2

We made our way to Lacock Abbey, founded in the early 13th century by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a nunnery of the Augustinian order. In the mid-16th century, Henry VIII dissolved monasteries, nunneries and friaries all over England, Wales and Ireland as part of his new Church's separation from Rome. His purse was suddenly much fuller. Our guide Gordon said that Lacock was the last abbey to be dissolved. Henry sold it to a Sir William Sharrington who demolished the abbey church in order to build a comfortable house, but left most of the rest of the abbey untouched. Those original sections make the abbey a perfect film location for such movies as the Harry Potter series, The Other Boleyn Girl and the aforementioned masterpiece Pride and Prejudice.

The first room we visited was the former Sacristy, which served as...

...Professor Snape's Potions classroom in Sorcerer's Stone.

That's the doorway Snape first storms through, robes billowing all sexy-like behind him.

Gordon had us pose in the corner where...

...Snape delivers his potions speech, all sexy-like. "I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and ensnare the senses..." How can you resist Rickman's Snape? (Especially after you've seen Rickman in Sense and Sensibility. Snape will never be a greasy git in my eyes.)

The Chapter Room was used in the first two films; in Sorcerer's Stone as the room where...

....Harry first finds the Mirror of Erised.

In Chamber of Secrets after Harry's gift of Parseltongue has been revealed, suspicious looks thrown Harry's way during study time make Harry slam his book shut and leave the room, walking by this window.

And there he goes, poor boy.

After Harry serves detention with Gilderoy Lockhart (helping to answer Lockhart's fanmail) in Chamber of Secrets, he leaves the classroom via this door.

Do you remember what happens at that point?

He hears a voice that seems to be coming from inside the wall saying, "Blood....I smell blood..."

And the voice continues with "Let me rip you...let me kill you..."

At this corner, Harry tells Hermione and Ron about the strange voice.

This same set of hallways along the abbey's cloister serves as Cambridge in Pride and Prejudice. University student Fitzwilliam Darcy walks purposefully along these hallways until he arrives at a door, behind which he finds naughty Mr. Wickham in an embrace with a scantily clad young lady. Other parts of the abbey we didn't visit were used for interior shots of Pemberley, Mr. Darcy's estate.

The Warming Room served as the classroom of....

....Quirrell, the stuttering professor with the malodorous turban. You can just make out the large cauldron next to him.

This was the only room where the nuns had a fire. This cauldron is over 500 years old. A platform was built around it for Quirrell to stand on.

Lacock Abbey acknowledges is connection with the first two Harry Potter films by displaying this poster. The only problem is, none of those scenes featured on the poster were filmed at the Abbey. Our guide was quite proud to point this out, and doing so served to deepen our appreciation of his Harry Potter expertise.

Harry, Ron and Hermione ran down this corridor to escape Mrs. Norris in one or possibly both of the first two movies.

Back outside trying to figure out how a sundial works

Leaving the abbey

One last photo at the abbey. Gordon asked if we recognized this location and said that taking a photo here was a must for diehard Potter fans. We were ashamed to admit that we couldn't identify it. Can you?

This is the place baby Harry and his parents posed for that photo that Hagrid places in a scrapbook for Harry. You see the scrapbook at the end of Sorcerer's Stone and at the beginning of Chamber of Secrets.

It was time for lunch!