When you’re looking to conjure up a world to convince people that magic exists (and has done for centuries), it’s little surprise England’s oldest university was top of the list to inspire the wizarding world – and for fans of the Boy Who Lived, taking a Harry Potter walking tour of Oxford is unmissable.
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Not only did Oxford’s honey-coloured gothic architecture inspire the film-makers behind the Harry Potter movies, the city was used as a filming location throughout – one of the few places which was, apart from the film sets at Leavesden and various sites in London.
And while you can wander the streets solo on a self-guided Harry Potter tour of Oxford, paying for entry to the colleges and libraries with links to the films, you’ll learn even more on a guided Oxford Harry Potter walking tour (with kids or without).
The Muggles selling tickets for our particular Harry Potter walk in Oxford worked for Footprints Tours – but we were reliably informed by our tour guide that she herself was a witch.
Rummaging in her bag, she pulled out scarves in all the house colours before asking for volunteers for each (and sternly informing us that it would be very boring if everyone wanted to be Gryffindor).
While my 11-year-old was channelling Ravenclaw that day, the discovery that she was wearing her Hufflepuff T-shirt – and the fact that no-one else wanted to wear the yellow & black scarf – meant she stepped up for team kind.
And then promptly unleashed her competitive side during our 90-minute wander around Oxford, answering Harry Potter trivia questions to come away with 80 house points and a sherbet lemon as her reward.
Along the way, our guide threw in a whole string of other faces, spotting all kinds of details around the city which you wouldn’t notice if you wandered solo.
For starters, pointing out her friend Hugo whose attempts at transfiguration had gone wrong (you might mistake him for an Anthony Gormley statue if you didn’t know the truth), revealing the prank to put traffic cones on all the giant heads by the Sheldonian (a joke the Weasley twins would be proud of), and showing us the narrow alleyway to the Turf Tavern.
A favourite drinking spot of the cast and crew during filming – the adult ones at least! – you could have wandered in here to find Dumbledore relaxing with a pint, as if it were the Three Broomsticks. As the Turf Tavern dates back to 1300, it would hardly be out of place in Hogsmeade either.
Whether this narrow cut-through really inspired Knockturn Alley is hard to say, but with a sign saying ‘an education in intoxication’, it’s a lesson in keeping your eyes peeled.
Our first main stop was New College – no points for pointing out that it’s really not so new now, founded in 1379.
For more things to do in Oxford with kids, check out my top picks
While the dining hall here wasn’t used for any actual Harry Potter filming, this was the first hall to use the set-up of the high table at the head of the room and the other tables lined up at right angles. Soon copied by the other Oxford university colleges, it eventually became the model for the tables in the Great Hall at Hogwarts.
Keep an eye out for the older portraits at the corner of the room too, whose eyes seem to follow you around the room as you walk – part of the inspiration for Hogwarts’ moving portraits.
The beautiful chapel (no photos allowed inside) hides some fantastic beasts as well in the misericords, plus you can see a lion in the original stained glass windows – probably not Gryffindor’s admittedly.
The Harry Potter filming location at New College which fans will recognise though are the lovely cloisters and grassy courtyard.
These feature in several scenes from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, including a row between Harry and Ron, a meeting between Harry and Cedric, and most memorably, around the tree in the corner where Draco Malfoy gets turned into a ferret.
With that happy image in our minds, we strolled back towards the Bodleian library. One of the oldest libraries in Europe, the buildings near the Sheldonian theatre are connected to the Radcliffe Camera nearby by a whole string of underground passageways, with books secretly shuttling backwards and forwards underneath your feet.
The books chained up inside here were for their own protection from students – who might otherwise have been tempted to steal them back in the 14th century, when a single volume could cost 2,000 years’ average wages – rather than to protect the students, as in the Restricted section at Hogwarts.
Still a working library, Duke Humfrey’s Library is the oldest reading room: it’s named after the first Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV, who donated his impressive collection of 281 books to the university on his death – the university only had around 20 at the time.
Little did he know that his descendant around six generations on, Henry VIII, would destroy all bar three of them. Or that film-makers would later use it for a movie about magic – in the Philosopher’s Stone, when Harry uses his invisibility cloak to enter the restricted section, it’s Duke Humfrey’s library he walks around.
While you can only visit on an official tour of the Bodleian, we could visit the library’s other main location on our Harry Potter walking tour of Oxford – the Divinity School, which appeared as the infirmary, and as the place where Professor McGonagall dances with Ron in Goblet of Fire, cunningly shot to hide the intricate ceiling so it’s less obviously the same room.
Don’t miss the statue outside: the dashing Earl of Pembroke has his own head firmly attached, but the clothes and swagger helped inspire Nearly Headless Nick.
Harry Potter isn’t the only literary links to Oxford, of course, and as we strolled to our next destination, we got a chance to peek at Narnia too – or at least the lamp post mentioned in CS Lewis’s writings (which still has a white bulb to mimic the gaslight once used) and the door with a lion’s head and two golden fauns on.
From Narnia, we moved on to stories about Alice in Wonderland as we arrived at Christ Church College – here Lewis Carroll (aka Charles Dodgson, a mathematician at the college) told stories to the Dean’s young daughter, Alice Liddell.
Eventually, she persuaded him to write her favourite down, and Wonderland, with its unforgettable characters was saved from being forgotten.
If you want to go inside Christ Church, this Harry Potter tour visits the outside only, but you can buy tickets to explore the college – well worth doing in advance, as these sell out, so there’s no guarantee you can pick them up on the day.
The Great Hall here also inspired the Great Hall at Hogwarts, although none of the scenes were actually shot here. However the impressive Bodley staircase was used several times in the first two films.
At which point, we had to return reluctantly to the real world.
With some of the history of Oxford, as well as its other literary links, all wrapped up with the Harry Potter highlights, it’s a great way for fans to explore – and to discover more about the city in an easy enjoyable way, perfect if you’re looking for a Harry Potter walking tour of Oxford with kids.
For a few more Harry Potter sites in Oxford, head to the Oxford Museum of Natural History, which I’ve been visiting with my daughter since she was a preschooler – once home to a stuffed Dodo, the directors visited to get inspiration from its eclectic mix of artefacts. You can also see the Oxford Story Museum, with its magic common room (as well as getting a taste of Narnia, Wonderland and Lyra’s Oxford here)
Harry Potter walking tour Oxford: Need to know
You’ll find several Harry Potter tours of Oxford available, but it’s worth checking which of the Harry Potter sites they visit on your Oxford walking tour – not all will take you inside the Bodleian library for instance.
I chose the Footprints Oxford walking tour as it wasn’t too long – officially 90 minutes, but probably ended up being about 10 minutes longer – and for the fun Harry Potter quiz, as well as because it visited the key Harry Potter filming locations.
Visit Oxford Tours also has a two hour Harry Potter Tour including Divinity School entry, and a quiz, but not entry to New College or Christ Church college.
They also have a longer (and more expensive) Harry Potter tour visiting Christ Church, although that section in the college is with an audio guide and you don’t visit New College.
If you’re looking for a free walking tour of Oxford, these 90-minute walking tours do visit some of the Harry Potter filming locations but it’s not a dedicated Harry Potter tour, so it’s a different experience.
If you’re determined to track down every last one of the Harry Potter locations in the UK, there are a couple more near Oxford too – including a tree on the estate at Blenheim Palace, which appears in Order of the Phoenix, and the pretty village of Lacock, around an hour away
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links – any purchases you make are unaffected but I may receive a small commission. I booked this Harry Potter walking tour Oxford myself.
Images copyright MummyTravels
