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harry potter - Where is Godric's Hollow?


In the Harry Potter books (specifically, HP and the Deathly Hallows), Godric's Hollow is the home and/or birthplace of a great many famous British witches and wizards - maybe even all of them.


But where exactly is it? Do we know any more than just "somewhere in Britain"?



Answer



We do know a little bit more, and it's been best summed up already on the Muggles' Guide to Harry Potter:



In Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, we are told that, in A History of Magic, Bathilda Bagshot writes that Godric's Hollow, a "West Country village," 1 is one of a number of villages where wizards settled in relatively large numbers after the ratification of the International Statute of Secrecy in 1689.




And there's mention of part of Hagrid's trip from the Hollow to Little Whinging:



At the start of the story, Hagrid brings back the one year old Harry Potter from Godric's Hollow to Privet Drive in Surrey on a flying motorbike. He says to Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall that Harry "fell asleep as we was flyin' over Bristol."



Pottermore just gives us the generic info found in the Bagshot quote:



Godric's Hollow fact file
WHERE IN THE WORLD
A village in the West Country of England




Here's West Country:


enter image description here


Commenters have indicated several other possible routes Hagrid took, which shows that our known location for the Hollow is still too vague to pinpoint a more specific location.



1See @Au101's anwser for the precise location of this quote.


For the record, I also searched Accio Quote and Rowling's Twitter account for more insight, but came up empty.


To acknowledge @ibid's answer, some clue may exist in the sorting hat's song, regarding Godric being born in a "wild moor", but unfortunately no other clues exist to indicate whether that refers to an actual named moor. However, combining that with some ideas from @January's answer, I've come up with my own best guess:


enter image description here


Keep in mind, this part is just my guess and not the canon answer.



I'd say Godric's Hollow is possibly somewhere in area of Exmoor National Park.



  1. It's in West Country

  2. It's a "moor", per "Bold Gryffindor, from wild moor"

  3. If Hagrid flew first towards Bristol then followed the M4 (or other roads), then he would have crossed the Bristol Channel, making the "halfway out ter sea" comment make sense.


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