+4 photos"Harry Hotspur — the most famous Percy of them all — was born here in 1364. Shakespeare made him the hero of Henry IV Part 1, brave and reckless and doomed. He died at the Battle of Shrewsbury at thirty-eight, and the castle has been defending his memory ever since."
About
Alnwick Castle rises from the Northumberland countryside with the confidence of a family that has lived in one place for over seven hundred years. The Percys — Dukes of Northumberland, Earls of everything, the most powerful family on the English border — have held this castle since 1309, and they've made it magnificent. The barbican alone, with its stone figures perched on the walls like medieval gargoyles, announces that this is not a ruin. This is a home.
The State Rooms are Italian Renaissance fantasy — the 4th Duke remodelled them in the 1850s with Roman mosaics, Venetian paintings, and Curio cabinets that would make a museum jealous. Canaletto, Titian, and Van Dyck hang in rooms still used by the family. But most visitors know Alnwick from the screen: it doubled as Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter films, and children still queue to ride broomsticks in the courtyard where Daniel Radcliffe had his first flying lesson.
The Alnwick Garden, created by the current Duchess, is a £42-million explosion of imagination next door — the Poison Garden (locked behind skull-and-crossbones gates, containing every deadly plant you've read about in mystery novels), the Grand Cascade, and one of the world's largest treehouses. The castle and garden together make Alnwick the most visited paid attraction in Northumberland. Come in spring when the cherry trees bloom along the Capability Brown landscape, and the castle looks exactly like somewhere a wizard might live.
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Getting There
Terrain & Accessibility
Famous as Hogwarts in Harry Potter. The State Rooms are accessible via lift. Grounds are largely flat and paved. The Alnwick Garden next door is fully accessible. Broomstick training and dragon activities for children. Combined tickets available.
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