When a fellow Harry Potter-loving cousin visited while I lived in London, it was an obvious opportunity to do the Warner Bros. Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter.
The first thing to know is that you need to book tickets in advance, as this is no ordinary tour. When booking, you not only have to choose the date you will visit, but also the exact time. The extensive information on the website informs you to allow roughly three hours for a visit, so I chose an early afternoon time slot and noted that we needed to arrive 20 minutes prior to the time of entry.
Travelling from London was extremely easy. The studio is located in Leavesden, a little under 50 minutes by train then bus from London Euston Station. Direct trains travelling to Watford Junction leave regularly from Euston, and take about 20 minutes. When we arrived at Watford Junction, it was easy to locate the stop where the free shuttle bus would pick us and our fellow Harry Potter nerds up, transporting us to the tour that awaited. The bus is free but you need to have your ticket or confirmation ready to show the driver.
Once at the studio we filled time waiting for our tour browsing the gift shop, where I was sorely tempted to make some fairly impractical purchases, but refrained. Finally, it was our turn to enter.
Though it is called a tour, you are left to wander at your own pace. Once you step through the doors, you are immediately immersed in the world of Hogwarts, as the first set is that of the Great Hall – completely with a somewhat creepy, faceless Dumbledore mannequin. The Hall itself is not as large as I expected, but was wonderful to see in real life nevertheless.
Leaving the Great Hall, you enter a vast room full of different sets, such as the Hogwarts Clock, the boy’s dormitory, the Weasley’s kitchen, the Ministry of Magic, and the potions classroom. There are also mannequins dressed in costumes – some of which are incredibly tiny, reminding you how young the cast were when filming for the first movie began what feels like a different lifetime ago, before anyone knew who Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint or Emma Watson are.
After spending considerable time in this room, we moved on to the next stage. Stepping outside we found one of undercover Hogwarts bridges that starred in many different scenes in the films, as well as The Knight Bus, 4 Privet Drive and the Shrieking Shack. Also of notable importance was the stall selling butterbeer. The non-alcoholic beverage was delicious – smooth, sweet and reminiscent of butterscotch.
We sat in the sunshine and drank our butterbeers, discussing what we had seen so far and what might be to come. The next stage was a dark room complete with models of dementors, Acromantula, and more items associated with the darker side of the series, plus Dobby the house elf. Following that was Diagon Alley, which was colourful and brilliant in every detail.
I found the next section the most interesting – a collection of art and preliminary sketches that eventually became the recognisable characters and sets fans across the world saw on screen. Following that was the goose bump-inducing model of Hogwarts Castle, which sat in a large room all on its own, with the most sweeping tracks from the soundtrack playing as the lighting continually changed. We spent a long time in there, marvelling at the tiny details, enjoying the peaceful room with the stirring music. It was easily another major highlight of the tour.
The final stop was the room of wands, where the neatly stacked boxes each featured the name of the actor to whom the wand belonged. I believe many of the wands, of the main characters at least, were available for purchase in the gift store.
All in all, our visit clocked in just under the three-hour mark, and it was every bit as magical as we hoped it would be. True Harry Potter fans simply cannot miss it.
Courtney Gahan is a serial expat, traveller and freelance writer who has bartered with Moroccan marketeers, seen the sun rise at Angkor Wat and elbowed her way through crowds on NYE in NYC
