edinharrypotterburgh

As someone who gleans most of her inspiration for art and writing from her surroundings, I find it fascinating when I can catch glimpses of what it was that inspired other artists and authors. As mentioned in an earlier post, Edinburgh was the city in which the famous Harry Potter was written -- the first couple books in a variety of cafes around the city, the rest of them in the safety of JK Rowlings' writing room.

It's easy to see that Edinburgh played a fairly big part in inspiring particular details from the Harry Potter series -- either that, or there's a whole lotta coincidences going on. JK Rowling wrote the first few books at a table that had a view of this:

That's right, a massive centuries-old castle on a cliff. Hogwarts? Perhaps in part. Below is another view of Edinburgh castle taken from the yard of George Heriot's School, established and opened in the 1600s as a school for orphaned boys. 

George Heriot's School can also be seen from that famous cafe's window -- not the whole thing, but certainly the four towers of the main building. 

The four towers that represent the four different houses of the school. 

The school that looks like a castle that sits under a castle that looks like Hogwarts.

Does no one else think this is weird?

It's me! This is inside the courtyard of the school -- they had an open house week where they were open to the public before fall term started. We took ourselves on a tour.

One of the school's bulletin boards. Four houses?!? Four house colours and crests?? HOUSE POINTS!? It's so Hogwartian I can't even handle it.

Greyfriars Kirkyard and Cemetery also sits right below JKR's favourite writing spot and holds a few more curious proofs of inspiration -- 

First, there's the grave of McGonagall -- yes, a man, but still! And then:

This guy's grave is in the cemetery too. I wonder if he knew his name would be borrowed by an author 200 years later to create an evil wizard character. And yes, JKR could've come up with it on her own... but you've got to admit it's a little weird. 

 And then we saw Hedwig! 

{This post written July 2013}