UK Fun Stay and All the Places We Go: Harry Potter and the Gloucester Cathedral

Yesterday we visited Gloucester to see the cathedral. We bought an etching of the Gloucester Cathedral at the charity shop. Since we had the souvenir, we needed to visit the cathedral. It was absolutely amazing. The Gloucester Cathedral was the former Benedictine Abbey of St. Peter founded in the 11th century. The cathedral was the location of 2 Harry Potter movies: The Sorcerer's Stone and the Chamber of Secrets. I am a Harry Potter fan; I've read all the books several times and seen all the movies. I was intrigued and delighted to see where those two movies had been filmed. Our tour guide was Mr. Potter. He had been present when the movies had been filmed. Our tour was awesome! I loved every minute of it. Of course, having Mr. Potter as our guide was a bonus. He could explain how the cathedral was transformed into Hogwarts. Filming could only be done in the cloisters, not in the actual cathedral.

This is the great hall where the students traveled from
classes to the common rooms.

This hallway was flooded for the scene with the troll.

You can see how The Cloisters were used for filming.

This is the doorway that Harry and
Hermione used to leave Hogwarts.
The gargoyle-like face was not
supposed to appear in the movie!

It was a magical tour with Mr. Potter as our personal tour guide. After our tour with Mr. Potter, we spent time walking around the cathedral marveling at the architecture. The perfect ending to our tour was lunch in the Monk's Kitchen.

As it happened, we stumbled upon Gloucester History Festival and Heritage Open Days. Several of the public buildings open their doors to the public, the majority free. It's a way for Gloucester to share the heritage of the city to visitors as well as locals. It was suggested that we visit the Blackfriars Priory. Again, we had an excellent tour guide as we toured the Priory. The Priory is a 13th century church where much of the original structure still remains.