What we find there- Places - real and imagined

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 116956


Neri wrote:
> > > 
> > > Spinners End certainly sounds like a place. IMO it is the
Order's new HQ, or at least their safe place for Harry. 
<snip>
> > bboyminn:
> > 
> > Oddly enough Spinners End Industrial Park is just west of
Birmingham near a suburd called */Dursley/*. <snip>
> 
> Geoff:
> There is no road called Spinners End listed in my "A to Z of Greater 
> London". Having lived in London for 45 years, I can recall no area 
> with such a name - unless it's tucked away well on the periphery in 
> one of the New Towns perhaps. <snip>

Carol responds:
I think you're both right that Spinners End is not only a place but a
road. Doesn't "end" suggest a cul de sac, like Bag End in LOTR? I
don't think it's a real road, though--probably a fictional one like
Diagon Alley and Knockturn Alley, and possibly in that same
(imaginary) section of London. 

As for the name itself, "spinners" could be intended literally: people
(generally women) who spin thread from wool or other fibers, possibly
still done in some magical way in the WW, so Spinners End would be the
dead-end street where cloth is spun and perhaps woven (before going to
Madame Malkin and her competitors to be fashioned into robes). But
"spinners" could also suggest some mythical connotation: Clotho of the
Three Fates again?

In any case, I think Steve is probably correct that a house in
Spinners End is the new Order headquarters, especially since it
appears so early in the book and we know Harry won't be spending much
time with the Dursleys.

Carol