xxx
WORD SOURCES
 "Privet" is a bushy plant, often used as hedges. The house in Privet Drive is a protected place for Harry, where he is "hedged in," as it were, against Dark Magic. Alternatively, Harry is "hedged in," trapped with the Muggle family who destests him.
xxxx
No, really?
 "Ottery St. Catchpole" isn't a real place. But there is a village called Ottery St. Mary near Exeter. In that same general area is a farm called The Burrow (really!) which has a hill near it called Stoat Hill. 
    The Muggle World
Places

"Fascinating! Ingenious, really, how many ways Muggles have found of getting along without magic!" 
          -- Arthur Weasley

see also: Gazeteer of Wizarding Britain

Surrey
Surrey is a county in Britain located to the southwest of London.

    Little Whinging
    Vernon and Petunia Dursley live in this suburban town. Their house is located at Number Four, Privet Drive, where the houses are described as large and square (OP1). Two streets away is Magnolia Crescent (PA2).
    "whinging" (Br. Eng.) [WINJ-ing]: complaining, whining
  • Number 4, Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey - a perfectly normal house, thank you very much... (floorplan)
  • Magnolia Crescent - several streets away from Privet Drive, where the Knight Bus happened to pick Harry up at an opportune moment; coincidentally, Mrs. Figg lives a couple of streets away from Privet Drive (PA3)
    • Number 2, Magnolia Crescent - pebbly wall, Sirius Black in dog form watched Harry from next to the garage on the night he ran away from the Dursleys.
    The zoo (minus one boa constrictor)
    A local zoo to which the Dursleys take Dudley on his eleventh birthday, along with Piers Polkiss and, against their will, Harry. (SS2) At the zoo, they buy ice cream treats, see a gorilla, eat at the zoo restaurant, and visit the reptile house (which Dudley finds boring since the animals aren't moving around much).
  • The film incorrectly shows Harry and the Dursleys at the London Zoo. This cannot be true, however, since when Harry goes to Diagon Alley, it is stated that he'd never been to London before (SS5). 
  • Which zoo was it? There is a zoo/adventure park in Surrey which fits the bill. It's called Chessington's World of Adventure and it has both a reptile house and a family of gorillas.
  • Stonewall High
    The local school which Harry would be attending if he hadn't gone to Hogwarts instead. The uniforms are gray.

    Grunnings
    Vernon Dursley is a director of this firm makes drills. His office is on the ninth floor and his desk faces away from the window.

London
Charing Cross Road
location of the Leaky Cauldron
    Vauxhall Road
    Street where there was a variety store where Tom Riddle bought his diary. 
       
    Kings Cross Station
    location of Platform Nine-and-Three-Quarters


    private hospital
    where Dudley had his tail removed

Other places in Britain
    Ottery St. Catchpole
    village near the Burrow; Stoatshead Hill is nearby
    • wizarding folk who live near the village are:
      • the Weasleys
      • the Diggorys (Amos and his wife, son Cedric (deceased))
      • the Fawcetts  (cf. Miss Fawcett, Ravenclaw, CS11, GF16, 23)
      • the Lovegoods


    Railview Hotel, Cokeworth
    proved not to be sufficiently remote to hide Harry from his magical mail. The Railview Hotel is a gloomy-looking hotel on the outskirts of a big city, presumably Cokeworth. Dudley and Harry shared room 17, which had twin beds and damp, musty sheets. Breakfast in the dining room consisted of stale cornflakes and cold tinned tomatoes on toast. (SS3)

    Hut-on-the-rock, the Sea
    where Hagrid finally caught up with Harry and the Dursleys. Perched atop a large rock way out at sea is a miserable little broken down shack. Inside it smells strongly of seaweed. There are gaps in the wooden walls and the windows are filthy. The hut does have a fireplace in one of its two rooms. Several moldy blankets can be found in the hut, along with a moth-eaten sofa. The only way to the hut is by rowboat.Well, the only Muggle way, anyhow. (SS4)

    Isle of Wight
    where Aunt Marge vacationed (SS3)

    Little Hangleton
    location of the Riddle House and  pub called The Hanged Man (GF1)

    • known inhabitants of Little Hangleton fifty years ago (c. 1940):
      • Dot
      • proprietor of the pub
      • the Riddle family: Mr & Mrs, son Tom
        • Frank Bryce, Riddle's gardener, 28 at time of deaths
        • the cook - told the pub that Frank was guilty, no doubt
        • the maid - found the bodies


    Great Hangleton
    near Little Hangleton

    • closest police station


    Blackpool Pier
    Neville Longbottom's Great Uncle Algie pushed him off this pier, hoping to spark some magic in him, but he nearly drowned

    orphanage
    Tom Riddle was raised in a Muggle orphanage. He hated it there. 

    • Which orphanage was this? The diary was purchased on Vauxhill Road in London, and the closest orphanage to that location in the 1920s was the Stockwell Orphanage, begun in the mid-1800s by the famous preacher Charles Spurgeon. [WEB LINK]. The Stockwell Orphanage might have been the place where Tom Riddle grew up in misery, although by all accounts it was not a repressive place of the type we imagine from Oliver Twist. Also, according to the original charter, children stayed at the Orphanage only through age 14, and Riddle clearly lived at the Muggle orphanage through age 17. 

    Devon
    the part of Britain where Nicholas Flamel and his wife live

    Bristol
    Hagrid flew the motorcycle over this area on his way to Privet Drive, at which time baby Harry fell asleep.

    Kent
    Dadelus Diggle apparently lives here; the Wailing Widow hails from Kent as well.

Muggle Schools
    Smeltings School
    Vernon's alma mater, now Dudley's school
    Smeltings uniform includes a knobbly stick for hitting people

    St. Brutus's Secure Center for Incurably Criminal Boys
    where the Dursleys claimed to be sending Harry every school year (PA2)

    Eton
    school to which Jusin Finch-Fletchley was going when his family received the letter informing him that he had been accepted at Hogwarts.

elsewhere in the world
Majorca
an island in the Mediterranean off the coast of Spain where the Dursley's wanted to buy a vacation home (CS1) and where Petunia's friend Yvonne vacationed (SS2)

original content © 2003 The Harry Potter Lexicon
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original page date 2/5/01
last page update 3/5/03