Castle - How big is big. I say VERY BIG.

[Steve <bboy_mn@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52748

Has anyone stop to think about just how big Hogwarts castle is? It's
probably the biggest castle in the world. We have a lot of fairytale
illusions about castles, but if you go to the many British websites
with links a photographs to castle, you'll see that even the grandest
castle is not really all that big. Big yes, but not even remotely
Hogwarts big.

Most castles that I have research are 2 to 4.5 floors with towers that
rarely if ever go above 7 floors. The tallest tower of Windsor Castle,
which is supposedly the largest inhabited castle in the world looks to
be on the order of 7 floors (can't really find a good picture of that
tower) and that tower literally towers over the rest of the castle.

One reason why 'floor' count isn't an accurate indicator of size in
either Windsor or Hogwarts is that one FLOOR is NOT ONE STORY. 

In the average home, the ceilings (in the US) are 8 ft then add
another 1 ft for the thickness of the floor making 9 feet. In this
case, 1 floor equals 1 story (by some interpretation of the
definitions). In Windsor and other castles the ceiling heights range
from 12 to 30 (or 40) feet. Examples from Windsor Castle (best guess),
the ceiling of St. George's Hall appears to be between 20 and 30 feet
(estimated relative to assumed door size), in The Crimsom Drawing Room
they appear to be 12 to 14 feet assuming that the doors are indeed 7
ft (which I doubt), in The Queen's Audience Chamber easily 14 to 16
feet. So my point in comparing 'floor' relative to 'stories' is to say
that a 4 floor castle is like a 6 to 8 story apartment building.

Now let's look at Hogwarts. The main building of which I assume there
are several wings, is 7 floors. Assume an extremely modest average
floor to floor thickness of 14 ft (probably closer to 16 to 18 ft)
that makes 7 castle floors equal to a 10 story residential building,
and for the moment, I am ignoring any additional height added by the
roof. 

That just takes us up to the Common Room. Let's again assume a modest
4 floors above and 3 floors below the Common Room in the tower for the
Dorms. Really we should have to account for 16 floors; 7 boys dorms, 7
girls dorms, and 2 bathroom/shower rooms. So 14 ft times 4 floors
above the 7th floor adds the equivalent of 6 more stories. Now the
tower is a modest conservative 16 normal stories tall. Again drawing
on nothing but assumptions, I assume that a residence tower has a
peaked roof, so add 2 more normal stories for that (again
conservative). Now the Gryffindor Tower is 18 normal stories tall; 162
feet.

Keep in mind when using my evaluation of the height of Gryffindor
Tower, I have actually left a lot of dorms unaccounted for. My true
vison is that the spiral staircases on each side of the Common Room
take you to opposite floors. That is to say, the boy's staircase takes
you to all the odd numbered floors which are the boy's dorms, the
girl's stair case takes you (up or down) to the even numbered floors.
Since Harry's room is completely round, his dorm must take up a whole
floor of the tower. I suppose if we want to conserve space we could
say the both the boys and girls bathrooms are on one floor that has
been divided in half.

Next we move to the Astronomy tower which we have to assume towers
high above everything, In this case, even 20 stories seems a very
modest assumption, 24 is closer and 30 is probably a more accurate
height. Thirty stories times 9 feet per average normal story equals a
tower 270 feet high. 

Keep in mind that in view of the limited number of dorm floors I used,
my estimate falls far short of the true height.

Now let's look at the Entrance Hall and the Great Hall. Harry said the
 Entrance Hall was big enough to hold the entire Dursely house and
that the ceiling towered so high he could barely see it. I find it
hard to believe the Entrance Hall is the full 7 Hogwarts size floors,
I think it is probably closer to 4 which is the equivalent of a 6
story residential building with no accounting for additional height
because of the roof. The Great Hall has a clearly visible ceiling, so
I am guessing that it is not 10 to 12 stories above them. Probably
more like 3 to 4, with is (4x9=36) 36 feet. If it has a pitched room,
you can add another 10 to 15 feet to it.

Can you imagine what a nightmare is is to try and heat a place like
this. Think about how much heat you have to pour into the Great Hall
to fill it ceiling to floor with warm air (remember warm air rises),
then consider that the ceiling (or area where wall meets ceiling) has
a big hole in it for the owls to fly in, so heat is constantly leaking
out. Since they appear to heat with firewood, I'm surprised there is
any forest left at all in that area.

When you look at the numbers and bear in mind that I have extremely
UNDER estimated it size, this castle dwarfs any castle your wildest
imagination has ever conjured. This is one big MOTHER of a castle.

And that all I have to say about that.

bboy_mn