Our Christmas treat this year was a visit to the Harry Potter Studio Tours which involved a lot of driving around Watford for Ellie (which she managed very well – at one point it took us 20 minutes to go 800 feet!).

We had a very lovely time visiting the exhibition of props and sets from the films. We are now embarking on a Harry Potterthon and are watching all 8 films over Christmas.

The scale of the props needed was really brought home to us, from the volume of costumes for 8 films with a large cast and the amount of things that had been built, including sets of the rooms from the castle.

Dumbledore’s office was particularly spectacular, the many items that could not be bought so were made from scratch and the amazing detail of everything. Even the things that were only in the background of a shot were all beautiful.

Here are some of my favourite things.

The Banqueting Hall dressed for Christmas

An Ice Sculpture from the Yule Ball

The Clock and Pendulum

A case full of curios in Dumbledore’s office

The memories store in Dumbledore’s office – modelled on a chalice with so many beautiful tiny bottles

Clocks and curios in the Prop store

Lots of wands – all individually designed

The Potions classroom – beautiful bottles with magic ingredients!

Jake playing the role of Hagrid (well he is nearly tall enough!) rescuing Ellie from Privet Drive

The wonderful model of the castle, all covered in snow.

It was well worth a visit and a lovely couple of days away – Ellie is now a lot better at parking in multi-storeys than she was 🙂