Stepping Into the Great Hall
And then you get to enter the Great Hall.
This is probably one of the first moments of the Studio Tour where it really hits you that you’re standing inside the world from the films. You walk through the enormous doors and suddenly the Great Hall is right there in front of you – the long house tables, the stone floor, the teachers’ table at the far end and costumes representing the different Hogwarts houses.
And this isn’t a recreation made for the tour. This is the actual Great Hall set.
It was one of the first sets built for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone back in 2000 and went on to become one of the most important and recognisable sets of the entire film series. It was used for everything from Hogwarts feasts and Sorting Ceremonies to the Yule Ball and the Battle of Hogwarts.
There are so many little details to look at once you’re inside. At the front of the hall is the teachers’ table, along with Dumbledore’s lectern, and behind it you can see the enormous House Points Counter filled with thousands upon thousands of tiny glass beads.
Even the floor beneath your feet is part of the original set. Rather than using something that only looked like stone, the filmmakers laid real York stone because the Great Hall needed to survive years of filming and hundreds of students walking across it.
One detail I particularly love is the house tables. They were deliberately aged for the films, but some of the graffiti carved into them came from the young actors themselves. Production designer Stuart Craig actually encouraged it because Hogwarts was supposed to be a real school – and what school tables survive generations of students without somebody carving something into them?
There is one thing missing when you look up, though: the enchanted ceiling.
The physical Great Hall obviously couldn't have an endless magical sky above it, so the enchanted ceiling we see in the films was created with visual effects. Even the famous floating candles eventually became a digital effect. Real suspended candles were originally tried during the first film, but the heat caused problems with the wires holding them up, so the filmmakers turned to visual effects instead.
It’s also strange seeing the Great Hall without hundreds of Hogwarts students filling the benches. It somehow feels both much bigger and much smaller than it does on screen.
But standing there, looking towards the teachers’ table and knowing how many iconic Harry Potter scenes were filmed in that exact room, is incredibly special.
For a few minutes, you really do get to feel like you’ve walked into Hogwarts.
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