Tag: harry potter

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Lacock #50places2025

After enjoying my National Trust membership in 2023, I decided I would rejoin the Trust for 2025. 

I had never been to Lacock before. I think I always thought it was too far away for a visit, but the reality was that though it’s fifty miles away, due to its location it was only, according to Google Maps an hour away. So I thought I would go and visit, especially as it was now open for the summer season.

I nearly didn’t go there, as I travelled up the M5 I hit traffic around Gordano, so I came off the M5, and as I drove towards Bristol, I did think about just going to Tyntesfield again. However I had only visited a couple of weeks back, so I made the decision I would go to Dyrham Park which is close to Bath, which I had visited back in May 2023. As I drove towards Dyrham Park I saw that Waze was telling me, it wasn’t that much further to get to my first choice of Lacock. So took the decision to stick with plan A and go to Lacock.

There is a National Trust car park, which is free to members, otherwise is £5 for the day. It’s then a short walk to Lacock and Lacock Abbey.

Lacock

Country house with monastic roots, once home to William Henry Fox Talbot, inventor of the photographic negative

Current saving £9.20
One adult £20.00
Parking £5.00
Total saving £25.00
Cumulative saving £107.00
Membership cost £91.20
Net cumulative saving £15.80

I walked through the grounds to the house. You then walk around the house before entering the building and into the cloisters.

The first part of the house you see are the older parts of the Abbey, which when it was an Abbey would have been used by the nuns.

This part of the building was used to film certain scenes in the Harry Potter films, including the corridors and two of the rooms. There are a couple of houses in Lacock itself that were also used by the filmmakers.

After exploring the cloisters, you enter the rest of the house, exploring the kitchens, before heading up the stairs to the main rooms.

It was a beautiful house and also I loved how light it was. There was protective screens on the windows (like many National Trust properties) but these still let in a lot of natural light.

There was a real mix of rooms, I was surprised by the small size of the main bedrooms and then the vastness of the entrance hall.

After exploring the house, I took a short walk around the grounds before heading into the village of Lacock.

This year I have planned to visit fifty places.

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Movie Advent Calendar #22 – Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

“Sorry. We call them Muggles.”

In 2012 I did a cinematic advent calendar of twenty four films. These were films that I really liked and have enjoyed at the cinema. This year on a similar theme I will be posting a movie advent calendar of twenty four movies.

The first film was, rather original, it was different to the original Harry Potter series. I loved the fact it was set in the 1920s, it didn’t involve Hogwarts, it didn’t involve existing (lead) characters from Harry Potter. 

The film follows Newt Scamander, a magizoologist, as he travels to New York City with a suitcase full of magical creatures. He meets some American wizards and gets into a bit of bother. I loved the magical suitcase and all the animals hidden inside.

The special effects in this film are top-notch and bring the creatures to life in a way that is both believable and enchanting. The performances by the main cast, including Eddie Redmayne as Newt and Katherine Waterston as Tina, are strong and add depth to the characters.

The plot is engaging and fast-paced, with enough twists and turns to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. 

I also saw this film been shot when I visited the Harry Potter Studio Tour in 2015. Well I say saw, you could see from the car park that they were filming something at Leavesden Studios, and it involved some city buildings.

However the second and third films almost became too much like Harry Potter, there is a young wizard Newt Scamander, who is fighting a dark wizard, Grindelwald, and is helped (and hindered) by Dumbledore.

Also the two most recent episodes of the film series, in my opinion lost their way and it isn’t too surprising, along with the fact that the series has been mired in whirlwinds of controversy surrounding actors Johnny Depp (Gellert Grindelwald) and Ezra Miller (Credence Barebone), and Wizarding World creator JK Rowling, it looks like a fourth film won’t happen Not surprising that, as the two latest films in the franchise did not do well at the box office, and combine that with the  various controversies, we know now that the series (and possibly the franchise) has been killed by the studio.

So for me I still like the first film and I think it was a lovely piece of cinema.

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Knight Bus

The first time we went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was in 2015, just after they had added the Hogwarts Express and Kings Cross set to the tour. At the end of November 2019 we made a return visit, mainly to see how different it was dressed for Christmas and with snow.

Outside they had a snow machine, which added a little bit of a festive touch. However as you can see from the photographs below there wasn’t much snow to be seen…

One of the outside exhibits is the Knight Bus.

The Knight Bus is a triple-decker, purple AEC Regent III RT that assists stranded individuals of the wizarding community through public transportation. It operates at a very fast speed and obstacles will jump out of its way, and can also deceptively fit through small spaces.

To hail the bus, a witch or wizard must stick their wand hand in the air in the same manner that a Muggle might do while hailing a Muggle Bus in the United Kingdom, though it is possible to book tickets for travel on the bus in advance.

Inside the bus are beds for sleeping whilst travelling.

The Knight Bus seen in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban used a body constructed from three separate RT-class AEC Regent III buses. The triple-deck body was then fitted to a Dennis Javelin bus chassis. In order to portray the bus driving at high speeds, the cars around the bus drove slower while the bus drove at its top speed, and the footage was sped up afterward. Two buses were constructed for the film’s external shots, while the interior shots were filmed on a set that would rock back and forth to simulate the bus’ movement.

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Diagon Alley

The first time we went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was in 2015, just after they had added the Hogwarts Express and Kings Cross set to the tour. At the end of November 2019 we made a return visit, mainly to see how different it was dressed for Christmas and with snow.

I had expectations that Diagon Alley would be (or could be) rather festive, but in the end it was no different to how it is normally. Well there were some footprints in the snow and the special effects about how they were created, but that was less Diagon Alley and more Hogsmead.

Diagon Alley is a cobblestoned wizarding alley and shopping area located in London, England behind a pub called the Leaky Cauldron. Inside the alley is an assortment of restaurants, shops, and other sights.

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More Harry Potter Bits and Pieces

The first time we went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was in 2015, just after they had added the Hogwarts Express and Kings Cross set to the tour. At the end of November 2019 we made a return visit, mainly to see how different it was dressed for Christmas and with snow.

There are lots of costumes and props in the tour and you can spend ages looking at the attention to detail and if you rush you will miss stuff.

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Harry Potter Bits and Pieces

The first time we went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was in 2015, just after they had added the Hogwarts Express and Kings Cross set to the tour. At the end of November 2019 we made a return visit, mainly to see how different it was dressed for Christmas and with snow.

There are lots of costumes and props in the tour and you can spend ages looking at the attention to detail and if you rush you will miss stuff.

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Gryffindor Dormitory and Common Room

The first time I went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was in 2015, just after they had added the Hogwarts Express and Kings Cross set to the tour. At the end of November 2019 we made a return visit, mainly to see how different it was dressed for Christmas and with snow.

The Gryffindor dorm and common room were dressed for Christmas with a tree, decorations and presents.

 

Gryffindor is one of the four Houses of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and was founded by Godric Gryffindor. Gryffindor instructed the Sorting Hat to choose students possessing characteristics he most valued, such as courage, chivalry, and determination, to be sorted into his house. The emblematic animal is a lion, and its colours are scarlet and gold.

Get the complete set of Harry Potter films on DVD, Blu-Ray or 4K.
Get the complete set of Harry Potter films on Amazon Video or Apple iTunes.
Get the complete set of Harry Potter Books.

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The Ministry of Magic

The first time I went to the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour was in 2015, just after they had added the Hogwarts Express and Kings Cross set to the tour. At the end of November 2019 we made a return visit, mainly to see how different it was dressed for Christmas and with snow.

The Ministry of Magic always looked huge on the big screen, all done via the clever use of CGI. However they did build some physical sets to complement the virtual ones.