Harry Potter's Castle

to Alnwick  Castle. This is the castle used in the first two Harry Potter movies, but more about that later. This castle is set in a huge garden and parklands, and is huge! it belongs to the current Duke of Northumberland, who lives there Oct to April (the cold months). May to Sept. the place is open to visitors who have the honour of paying 24 pound to go through the garden and castle. (thats $50 each!
The gardens are amazing. there is a cascading waterfall (built in the 1800's) with fountains

 and mazes and rose gardens etc and also a POISON GARDEN! This is under lock and key and can only be accessed with a guide who tells you all about the different plant's 'dark side'! I can now knowledgeably kill  leaving little trace! You couldn't take photos tho.
Next door to it was a little Hagred's (HP) hut.

The castle itself was huge! Lots of courtyards and towers.

By the way, this coach was one that was restored by the current duke for his daughter's wedding in Feb 2011 (who would get married in Feb. up here?) so she could ride in style to her wedding1

Now for the good news. We went on a guided tour called 'Battleaxes and Broomsticks' which was a tour around places in the castle that were used for HP movies, robin Hood and Prince of Thieves and the first series of Blackadder. Hasn't this castle been busy! The guide was fantastic and knew his movies. He kept showing us places, and then would start with 'imagine Harry and Ron ....' and set the scene before he told you what happened and more interestingly how it happened. He kept asking HP questions (he was dressed up for the part)and my man knew all the answers! Sad but true. Anyway for you HP fans out there. I am going to download some photos of places that were used in the first two HP movies and you have to write down what scenes you think these places were used for. When you have done that scroll down and find out the real answers. Interesting and fascinating!

THE ANSWERS!




This was where the three kids were first walking into Hogwarts for the very first time. (they added a tower by computer after)
this is also where the ford anglia (Ron's Dad's car) came flying out of, before taking off home.
the funny story about this was that the stunt driver was suppossed to race through here, up a ramp so they could film the car 'flying', however the stunt driver was over - enthusiastic and went too fast off the ramp, the car went straight up into the air and landed on its nose in the path you can see! We saw the dent it made).
They used 12 ford anglias to make the 2nd movie, only 4 survived to drive again! these cars are rare, so some car enthusiasts were not happy.
the other scene this tower entrance was used for was when the car was flying around with the kids in it. they did this by getting a crane in, attaching the car with chains and made it 'fly' in the air around the tower. However one of the chains came off, the car went crashing down into the nearby holly bush!





This steel bar stuck into the stones, was used to hold up a flaming torch at the entrance of Hogwarts (see above entrance tower). this was fine until they tried to take it out, and it was stuck. To hack at it to take it out would damage the old stones, so they left it there!



this was where Hermoine came running through after the boys upset her when she showed off her wand skills in class.


this was the other side of the entrance tower, where the car dumped the boys and raced through out the other side.

This was where they did their broom-stick riding lessons, and Neville flew around the ramparts and ended up being stuck on the top, and middle etc (they added the hooks)


this is here by accident.


this is the winter /snow scene where Hagred drags a christmas tree along the forcourt covered in snow. They filmed this in the middle of summer (july) so used fake snow that was dampened with water so it would stick to the ground. However after filming, the wind got up and threw the bits of wet fake snow against all the old precious walls and stuck there! so ladders etc were used to try and get all the bits down!

This was where they set up a huge, fake , whomping willow tree.


this was where they put Hagred's hut. If you look closely near the middle, back by the trees you can see a funny circle patch of grass. This is where it went. App. they took it away after the first movie, then promptly brought it back for the second. After that they left it there, and the castle people ended up using it for an icecream shop!
The trees in the background were the Forbidden forest trees. They used a massive amount of dry ice which covered all this area, and made it spooky as the kids were walking towards the Forbidden forest with lanterns.

So ... who got it all right! needed a lot of imagination eh???
PS - they still do broom stick riding lessons there  (mainly chn and one man! not Dave)