5 top tips for visiting The Making of Harry Potter, Warner Bros. studio tour

For Christmas my sister gave me a brilliant present, a trip to The Making of Harry Potter, Warner Bros studio tour.

It totally lived up to me expectations, and I'll be posting some pictures of my visit in a couple of upcoming posts, but first I wanted to share some tips, so you can plan your own visit.  

winter walk

It's tradition to go for a walk on boxing day. Most of the photos I took were of my family and I messing about, climbing trees etc. and this blog is faceless,  but I have a couple to show you:-

Stowe- part 2

A lot later than I originally planned, here is the second part of my visit to Stowe. (first part here)

I thought he most logical thing to do was to split the photos into two- the first part is mainly trees and autumnal landscape.  This post is about the follies that are scattered around around the grounds. For those of you who don't know, a folly is a fanciful structure, built to be primarily decorative and to be an ornamental part of a large garden or estate. Some follies can however also be practical, a place to rest, take tea or even to sleep if they are far from the main house. 

Hatchlands

Hatchlands is just up the road from Clandon (see pictures from my trip here) so we paid it a quick visit whilst we were in the area.

Unfortunately, just like Clandon, photographs are forbidden inside the property, so I only have a few pictures to show you.

Clandon Park

We want to get as much use of possible out of our National Trust membership before the properties close for the winter, so this bank holiday we took a trip over to Clandon Park over in Guilford.

Hardwick Hall (inside)

The interior of Harwick Hall is just as grand as the outside. Some National Trust properties I've been to are pretty much empty on the inside with the furnishing and paintings been sold to private collectors, but Hardwick has plenty of things to look at.

More pictures under the jump:-

To see my photo from the outside of Hardwick see here, and for the gardens see here

Ightham Mote (outside)

As I mentioned in my Red House post, whilst we were in the area we popped over to Ightham Mote (pronounced 'item'), another National Trust property. It has a totally different feel to Red House, not as much a family home, but instead a proper castle.

It wasn't owned by anyone notable, just courtiers of Henry VII and later new money Americans, but the building is fantastic- a combination of fortified stone castle and Tudor, wooden beamed manor.