Hogwarts is in Scotland (longish)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 83994

I would like to add my few pennyworth to the discussion about 
Hogwarts and its location.

I think there is enough evidence in canon for the school to be 
located in Scotland. Firstly, main line trains departing from Kings 
Cross are heading up the East Coast Main Line (ECML). If they 
continue straight up the line and are not swinging off to Leeds or 
Bradford or Hull, then the journey will lead to York, Newcastle and 
ultimately Edinburgh from where a train could go on to Glasgow and 
beyond. I have already noted that the Ford Anglia in COS was spotted 
over London (the Post Office Tower), Norfolk ( a county to the east 
of the ECML) and Peebles ( a town to the south of Edinburgh and also 
south of the railway line) and that an extrapolated line from the 
latter two points heads you into the West Highlands.

While I was putting this post together, bboy came back with message 
83987. The line he refers to as passing through Carlisle and 
Lockerbie is the West Coast Main Line (WCML) which /does/ go into 
Glasgow. you cannot easily avoid Edinburgh or Glasgow if you are 
travelling through by rail with the Highlands as your aim. Referring 
back to Peebles, COS says "Mr. Angus Fleet of Peebles..." I think 
that the implication is that he was in his home town. I see no reason 
why the Anglia shouldn't have flown over. If they were heading in the 
direction of the Highlands, they had obviously wobbled off course 
over Norfolk but setting a general course could take them that way. 
we do know from COS that the Ford had a compass fitted.

There is also the feeling that Hogwarts is in an isolated location. 
There are not many really isolated areas in England and Wales. Even 
in the Lake District, which contains England's highest mountains and 
in Snowdonia in Wales, you are never an incredible distance from 
roads and "civilisation". 

There is a problem here in connection with the Hogwarts Express. One 
gets the impression from canon that Hogsmeade station is a terminus. 
Once you get north of the main industrial belt, say the Glasgow-
Edinburgh axis  and as far as Perth, the rail lines north of here 
have only a limited number of termini – Oban, Mallaig, Kyle of 
Lochalsh on the western side. All of these are reasonably sized 
towns. Hogsmeade is described as having a tiny platform; does the 
Wizarding World have its own magic line which leaves the Muggle main 
line somewhere to reach Hogsmeade?

Sitting and thinking over my own visits to the Highlands, I settled 
on two possibilities for areas compared to bboy's four. Rannoch Moor 
is certainly one of them. It is remote, a largish area (by UK 
standards) with just a few roads acorss the middle, boggy with a 
minimal population. A second, even more remote locality for Hogwarts 
might be the area of land including the Knoydart peninsula which lies 
north of the A830 Fort William-Mallaig road and the parallel rail 
line and south of the A87 Sheil Bridge-Kyle of Lochalsh road and rail 
line. It includes the notorious Loch Hourn (the Loch of Hell) and 
there are virtually no roads at all in the area. Putting aside the 
problem of the rail link, this would be an area only visited by hardy 
tourists prepared for climbing or rough terrain walking and not for 
the faint hearted Muggle.

Other points which have arisen include the name of Hogwarts. Remember 
that Hogwarts, although founded 1000 years ago, is a new institution 
grafted on to the area and wouldn't necessarily have a Scots sounding 
name and bboy again suggested that Hogsmeade developed as an adjunct 
to the school.  There are also genuine Scottish places  which do not 
sound in the least Scottish – Fowlis Wester, Dollar and Dull for 
example.

On the question of "lake" versus "loch". bboy is wrong in his 
assumption about lochs which are Scottish lakes; they can be 
completely inland such as Loch Lomond - if open to the sea, such as 
Loch Hourn it is a sea-loch. Bear in mind that very few Hogwarts 
students are Scots and have little interaction with the local 
population. Therefore, they might well refer to the loch at Hogwarts 
as "the lake". As parallel examples, in the Lake District in England, 
there  is only one Lake – Lake Windermere; all the others 
are "waters" – Coniston Water for example but are always referred to 
in conversation as "lakes". Similarly in my own neck of the woods, 
streams and rivers are often (wait for it!) "waters" but are referred 
to by us as "streams" or "rivers".

So, I would join with bboy, Astrofiammante and Kirstini is putting my 
money on Hogwarts being in the Scottish Highlands. All I  need is for 
someone to find the relevant spell for building a railway branch line 
and my day will be made!

Geoff