Where Was Harry Potter Filmed? Hogwarts to Platform 9 3/4

Harry Potter was filmed mostly at Leavesden studios, just northwest of London. All eight films were made there between 2000 and 2010, and the Great Hall, Diagon Alley and the Gryffindor common room were all sets.

The rest came from real places across Britain. Alnwick Castle in Northumberland played Hogwarts in the first two films. Oxford, Gloucester, Durham and Lacock gave the school its staircases, corridors and classrooms. The Scottish Highlands gave it the train, the lake and Hagrid’s hut.

This guide counts down the 10 Harry Potter filming locations that matter most, from a Wiltshire abbey to the studio where you can walk into the Great Hall.

#	Real place	Plays	Films	Can you visit?
10	Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire	Snape’s classroom, the Mirror of Erised	1, 2, 6	Yes. National Trust
9	Durham Cathedral	Hedwig’s flight, McGonagall’s classroom	1, 2	Yes. Free entry
8	Freshwater West, Wales	Shell Cottage, Dobby’s grave	7, 8	Yes. Free beach
7	Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire	Malfoy Manor	7	Yes. National Trust
6	Gloucester Cathedral	The Hogwarts corridors	1, 2, 6	Yes. Free entry
5	Christ Church and the Bodleian, Oxford	The staircase, the library, the hospital wing	1 to 4, 6	Yes. Tickets
4	King’s Cross and the City, London	Platform 9 3/4, the Leaky Cauldron	1 to 3, 5 to 8	Yes. Free
3	The Scottish Highlands	The Hogwarts Express, Hagrid’s hut, the dragon task	2 to 4, 6 to 8	Yes. Free
2	Alnwick Castle, Northumberland	Hogwarts	1, 2	Yes. Reopens March 2027
1	Leavesden studios, Hertfordshire	The Great Hall, Diagon Alley, almost everything	All 8	Yes. Studio Tour

The 10 Harry Potter Filming Locations

The countdown starts in a quiet Wiltshire village and ends at the studio where the whole series was made.

10) Lacock Abbey: Snape’s Classroom and the Mirror of Erised

A medieval abbey in a National Trust village gave Hogwarts three of its classrooms.

Lacock Abbey’s cloisters doubled as Hogwarts corridors in the first two films. Inside, the Sacristy became Snape’s Potions dungeon, and the Warming Room, with its huge old cauldron, became Professor Quirrell’s classroom. In the Chapter House, Harry finds the Mirror of Erised and sees his parents for the first time.

The village outside got a role too. In Half-Blood Prince, its streets play Budleigh Babberton, where Dumbledore and Harry find Professor Slughorn hiding. The abbey also turns up in Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, so it’s on the tour for more than one Wizarding World film.

9) Durham Cathedral: Hedwig’s Flight and McGonagall’s Classroom

The snowy courtyard where Harry lets Hedwig fly sits inside one of England’s great Norman cathedrals.

In Philosopher’s Stone, Harry stands in a white courtyard and sends Hedwig into the sky. That courtyard is Durham’s cloister garth under fake snow. The cloister walkways around it played Hogwarts corridors, and in Chamber of Secrets, Ron’s backfiring curse leaves him coughing up slugs on the same spot.

The Chapter House is McGonagall’s Transfiguration classroom, where she turns animals into water goblets and tells the class the story of the Chamber of Secrets. Durham is a short walk from the train station, and the cathedral and castle together are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

8) Freshwater West: Shell Cottage and Dobby’s Grave

The saddest scene in the series was filmed on a surf beach in Pembrokeshire.

The crew built Shell Cottage at the foot of the dunes at the north end of the beach, and filmed Dobby’s death and burial on the sand nearby. The cottage came down when filming wrapped, but fans have been visiting the spot ever since.

So many fans left painted pebbles and socks for Dobby that the National Trust now asks visitors not to. Take a photo and take your sock home. Freshwater West is better known to surfers than to wizards, and the currents make it unsafe for swimming, so stay on the sand.

7) Hardwick Hall: Malfoy Manor

The Malfoys’ gloomy home is an Elizabethan house in Derbyshire, made darker with a little CGI.

Hardwick Hall was built in the 1590s for Bess of Hardwick, one of the richest women in Elizabethan England. Its tall towers and huge windows were ideal for the Malfoys. The effects team gave the house a sinister edge, but the outline you see in Deathly Hallows is the real thing.

The real house is much friendlier. The National Trust runs it with its gardens and parkland, and it’s an easy stop off the M1 between Sheffield and Nottingham.

6) Gloucester Cathedral: The Hogwarts Corridors

When the Chamber of Secrets is opened and the warning appears in blood on the wall, Harry is standing in a real cathedral cloister.

Gloucester’s fan-vaulted cloisters are some of the most beautiful in England, and they played Hogwarts in three films. In Philosopher’s Stone, Percy leads the first-years along the south cloister to the Fat Lady’s portrait. Harry and Ron hide from the troll in the old washing area, the lavatorium.

In Chamber of Secrets, the walls carry the warning “The Chamber of Secrets has been opened” above the petrified Mrs Norris. In Half-Blood Prince, McGonagall catches Harry and Ron in the west cloister, and Snape and Malfoy argue about the Unbreakable Vow in the lavatorium. The cathedral is free to enter, and you can walk the same cloisters.

5) Oxford: The Great Hall Staircase, the Library and the Hospital Wing

Two Oxford buildings gave Hogwarts its grand staircase, its library and its hospital wing.

The fan-vaulted staircase up to the hall at Christ Church is where Professor McGonagall waits for the new students in Philosopher’s Stone. Dumbledore meets a young Tom Riddle on the same steps in Chamber of Secrets. The hall at the top wasn’t used for filming, but it was the model for the Great Hall the crew built at Leavesden.

Across town, the Bodleian Library gave Hogwarts two rooms. Duke Humfrey’s Library is the Hogwarts library, where Harry sneaks into the Restricted Section under his cloak. The Divinity School below it is the hospital wing in four films, from Dumbledore’s earwax bean to Ron’s recovery from poisoning. A 30-minute guided tour takes in the library, and the Divinity School when it’s open.

4) London: Platform 9 3/4, the Leaky Cauldron and the Millennium Bridge

London gave the films their Muggle world, starting at a real railway station.

The real platforms 9 and 10 at King’s Cross sit in a separate building with no wall between them. So the crew filmed the “platform 9 3/4” scenes on platforms 4 and 5, where brick arches stand between the tracks. The station now has a Platform 9 3/4 sign with a trolley half-way into the wall, next to a Harry Potter shop.

Diagon Alley was a set, but the Leaky Cauldron’s door in the first film is a real shopfront in Leadenhall Market. Australia House played the inside of Gringotts in the first film only. In Prisoner of Azkaban, the Knight Bus squeezes between two buses on Lambeth Bridge. In Order of the Phoenix, Mr Weasley takes Harry through Westminster tube station to the Ministry. In Half-Blood Prince, Death Eaters twist the Millennium Bridge into the Thames.

3) The Scottish Highlands: The Hogwarts Express, Hagrid’s Hut and the Dragon Task

The wild country around Hogwarts, and the train that carries the students there, is the West Highlands.

No Scottish castle played Hogwarts, but Scotland gave the films their scenery. The Glenfinnan Viaduct is the curving 21-arch railway bridge the Hogwarts Express crosses in Chamber of Secrets, with Harry and Ron chasing it in the flying car. The Jacobite steam train runs over it from Fort William to Mallaig in the summer season, so if you’re reading this in winter, plan for next year.

Glencoe’s hills frame the grounds in several films. For Prisoner of Azkaban, Hagrid’s hut was built on a slope near the Clachaig Inn, then taken down. Steall Falls in Glen Nevis is the backdrop to the first Triwizard task. Dumbledore’s white tomb was a set placed on Eilean na Moine, an island in Loch Eilt, and the effects team moved the island onto Loch Arkaig for the final shot. Glen Etive and Rannoch Moor appear in Deathly Hallows.

2) Alnwick Castle: Hogwarts and the First Flying Lesson

For the first two films, Hogwarts was a real castle in Northumberland.

Alnwick is the home of the Duke of Northumberland, and it has stood for almost a thousand years. In Philosopher’s Stone, its Outer Bailey is where Madam Hooch teaches the first-years to fly, Neville loses control of his broom, and Harry dives for the Remembrall. In Chamber of Secrets, the flying car crashes into the Whomping Willow in the Inner Bailey.

The wide shots of Hogwarts always came from a scale model, but Alnwick gave the first two films their real courtyards. From the third film, the grounds moved to Scotland, so Alnwick only appears in the first two. The fans kept coming anyway. A 2007 report credited the films with a 120% rise in visitors to the castle, and the castle now runs broomstick lessons for young fans.

1) Leavesden Studios: The Great Hall, Diagon Alley and the Studio Tour

Almost everything you remember from Harry Potter was filmed in a former aircraft factory outside Watford, and you can walk through it.

Leavesden started life in 1940 as a wartime aerodrome and aircraft factory, and became a film studio in the 1990s. The Harry Potter producers moved in for the first film, and all eight were made there. Warner Bros. bought the studio in 2010, near the end of filming, and opened the Studio Tour two years later.

The tour keeps the real sets: the Great Hall, Diagon Alley, Dumbledore’s office and Hagrid’s hut. It also has the 1:24 scale Hogwarts model the crew used for the castle’s exterior shots. Platform 9 3/4 and a real Hogwarts Express were added in 2015, the Forbidden Forest in 2017 and Gringotts in 2019. From 14 November 2026, the Great Hall is dressed for “Hogwarts in the Snow.”

Where Is Hogwarts in Real Life?

Hogwarts isn’t one place. The castle you see on screen is built from real castles, cathedrals and colleges, a scale model and a studio full of sets.

• The castle outside is the 1:24 model at Leavesden for the wide shots, plus Alnwick Castle’s courtyards in films 1 and 2.
• The Great Hall is a Leavesden set, modelled on the hall at Christ Church, Oxford.
• The grand staircase to the hall is Christ Church’s fan-vaulted staircase.
• The corridors are the cloisters at Gloucester, Durham and Lacock.
• The library is Duke Humfrey’s Library, and the hospital wing is the Divinity School, both in Oxford’s Bodleian.
• The classrooms include Lacock Abbey for Snape and Quirrell, and Durham’s Chapter House for McGonagall.
• Hagrid’s hut stood in Glencoe for Prisoner of Azkaban.
• Hogsmeade Station is Goathland, on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

How Harry Potter Was Filmed

Eight films, one studio, the same young cast for ten years.

• The span: Filming on Philosopher’s Stone began at Leavesden in September 2000. Principal photography on Deathly Hallows wrapped on 12 June 2010.
• The base: Leavesden hosted all eight films. The crew built permanent sets there, plus a backlot Privet Drive of ten houses.
• The model: Most of Hogwarts’ wide outside shots came from a 1:24 scale model, now the finale of the Studio Tour.
• Privet Drive: In the first film only, the Dursleys’ house was a real house in Bracknell, Berkshire. After that, it was the studio copy.
• The box office: The eight films took nearly $7.8 billion worldwide. Deathly Hallows Part 2 was the biggest, at over $1.3 billion.

How to Visit the Harry Potter Locations

Britain is small, but the locations stretch from the Welsh coast to the Highlands. Plan by region.

London (2 days).

1. Book the Studio Tour at Leavesden. Allow at least half a day, plus the shuttle from Watford Junction.
2. Start the next day at King’s Cross for the Platform 9 3/4 trolley.
3. Walk to Leadenhall Market, then over the Millennium Bridge to the South Bank.

Oxford and the West (2 days). Spend a day on Christ Church and the Bodleian. Then drive west to Gloucester Cathedral, which is free, and on to Lacock, about an hour south.

The North (2 days). Durham Cathedral is free and a short walk from the station. Alnwick is about an hour north, but it closes for the winter, so check the dates. Hardwick Hall and Malham Cove, where Harry and Hermione camp in Deathly Hallows Part 1, are a longer drive south, so give them a day of their own.

The Highlands (2 or 3 days). Base yourself in Fort William.

1. Ride the Jacobite to Mallaig, or watch it cross the viaduct from the Glenfinnan viewpoint.
2. Walk the Nevis Gorge to Steall Falls, about 40 minutes each way.
3. Drive to Glencoe for the hills behind Hagrid’s hut.

More Harry Potter Filming Locations

Place	Plays	Film
Goathland Station, North Yorkshire	Hogsmeade Station	Philosopher’s Stone
Malham Cove, Yorkshire Dales	The trio’s camp on the limestone	Deathly Hallows Part 1
Lavenham, Suffolk	Godric’s Hollow	Deathly Hallows Part 1
Picket Post Close, Bracknell	4 Privet Drive	Philosopher’s Stone
London Zoo Reptile House	Harry talks to the snake	Philosopher’s Stone
Black Park, Buckinghamshire	The Forbidden Forest	Philosopher’s Stone
New College, Oxford	Malfoy turned into a ferret	Goblet of Fire
Cliffs of Moher, Ireland	The cliffs outside the Horcrux cave	Half-Blood Prince

FAQs About Where Harry Potter Was Filmed

The Final Cut on Where Harry Potter Was Filmed

So where was Harry Potter filmed? Mostly at Leavesden, where the sets still stand on the Studio Tour. Alnwick Castle was Hogwarts for the first two films, Oxford, two cathedrals and Lacock Abbey gave it its insides, and the Scottish Highlands gave it the train and the hills.

You can’t visit one Hogwarts, but you can visit all ten of these. Start with the Great Hall and finish on the Glenfinnan Viaduct.

Which Harry Potter location would you visit first?

For more, see where Lord of the Rings was filmed and where Game of Thrones was filmed for two more fantasy worlds, read about Draco and other great foil characters, check out more movies based on books, or browse all our film locations.