Take A Virtual Tour Of ‘Diagon Alley’ Thanks To Google Street View
Google has given its map users access to many wonderful, bizarre and otherwise impossible to access places, but now it is opening up fictional worlds to exploration by adding Diagon Alley from the Harry Potter series to Street View.
The Street View application has just added 360 degree views of Diagon Alley, the fictional cobblestone wizarding marketplace from the Harry Potter books and films, where all manner of magical paraphernalia can be acquired.
For the films, Diagon Alley was built bricks-and-mortar in precise detail on a soundstage at Warner Brothers’ London studios. On Street View, users can swoop in from above the studios’ expansive grounds and into the dark confines of the pre-Victorian marketplace, where they can pass by Potter fan icons like Gringotts Wizarding Bank, Ollivanders Wand Shop and Mr. Mulpepper’s Apothecary.
In reality, Diagon Alley Ollivanders Wand Shop, Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes joke shop and the entrance to Gringotts Wizarding Bank are all part of the entrance to the Warner Bros Studio Tour in London.
The Diagon Alley set took more than three months to build and the 20,000 products on the shops’ shelves were created over six months.
After Deathly Hallows wrapped filming in 2010, part of Leavesden Studios (where all eight Potter movies were shot) was converted into a tour attraction along with permanent sound stages for future films to use.
The Warner Bros. Studio Tour London: The Making of Harry Potter opened in 2011 and has served as the country’s sole Potter attraction.
Google recently announced that it had added 1,001 new destinations to Street View, including historical landmarks and sports stadiums.
