What we find there- Places - real and imagined

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 116898


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "nkafkafi" <nkafkafi at y...> wrote:
> 
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "cubfanbudwoman"
> <susiequsie23 at s...> wrote:
> > 
> > SSSusan wrote:
> 
> > > > 
> > > > So the three chapters are:
> > > > Spinners End
> > > > Draco's Detour
> > > > Felix Felicis
> > > > 
> > > > 1) Spinners End sounds like a *place* to me.  Harry's shortest 
> > > > stay ever on Privet Drive, anyone?<snip>
> 
> > SSSusan:
> > I agree that that would certainly fit.
> > 
> 
> Neri:
> 
> Spinners End certainly sounds like a place. IMO it is the Order's 
> new HQ, or at least their safe place for Harry. ..edited..
> 
> According to the book review this is a place in London, but it 
> doesn't appear like it really exists. There is also an industrial
> estate in Birmingham:
> http://www.touchbirmingham.co.uk/comdir/cditem.cfm/20256
> 
> Neri

bboyminn:

Oddly enough Spinners End Industrial Park is just west of Birmingham
near a suburd called */Dursley/*. Based on my search at
www.uk.map24.com for the postal code associated with the industrial park.

SPINNERS END INDUSTRIAL ESTATE, OLDFIELDS. CRADLEY HEATH, WEST
MIDLANDS, B64 6BS, UK

In addition, when I Googled (google.co.uk) "Spinners End", I found an
ancestory website with a discussion board which was discussing
problems in using the 1881/91 census. Apparently, the census takers
often strayed while polling people, so there were frequenly gaps in
the street addresses that were added when the census taker returned at
a later date. 

http://www.rowleyregis.com/postp1463.html

"I was chasing my old ones in SPINNERS END [my emphasis]. I viewed the
pages written in copperplate by the census taker as he worked from
house to house. I recon that I was closing in even though the houses
had been re-numbered, until the census taker took a notion to
sidetrack down Holly Bush Lane."

This could imply that Spinners End is a street name as well as a place
name. Debatable whether he was searching for family on Spinners End
street when the census taker strayed to Holly Bush Lane, or whether he
was looking in the village of Spinners End, and from the street that
he was researching, the census taker strayed to Holly Bush Lane.

Most likely, JKR borrowed the name from the Novel in which it is
mentioned or from a map, and adapted it for her own use, in a fashion
similar to taking the name 'Dursley' from a map. 

That's a very common trick used by authors, they will search anywhere
and everywhere to find good character and place names; phone books,
TV/Film credits, plant and animal names, baby name registries, lists
of famous poets/authors, product brand names, etc.... I've used them
all myself.

So, while I think it is fairly safe to assume it is a place name, I
don't think we can make any inferences between it and the real world. 

Just a (mostly off topic) thought.

Steve/bboyminn (was bboy_mn)