03 September, 2012

The real Diagon Alley...

Cecil Court - Diagon Alley
...(as it turns out) isn't actually very far from my office! Just up Charing Cross road (walking up from Trafalgar Square), on the right hand side of the road, before you hit Leicester Square tube... Cecil Court - Diagon Alley
...is Cecil Court (origin of which dates back to the early 17th Century), which was revealed to be the real world "location" (and perhaps inspiration) for Diagon Alley (in the Harry Potter universe)-
Cecil Court - Diagon Alley
-and you can sort of see why, peering in through the windows-
Cecil Court - Diagon Alley
Cecil Court - Diagon Alley
Cecil Court - Diagon Alley
Cecil Court - Diagon Alley
-and looking at the names of the shops-
Cecil Court - Diagon Alley
- I can easily picture Harry and Hermione bustling up here, dodging folk shopping for dusty books or maps and ducking behind a rusty iron gate into one of the secret ways that leads into the wizarding world... ;)

1 comment:

Dad said...

Hey - I used to haunt Cecil Court as a student at King's College London, and was still visiting Watkins Bookshop for esoteric books (and looking in those fantastic windows - no wonder Diagon Alley felt so familiar! love Dad.