Why J.K Rowling bought the house that inspired Harry Potter

Monday, April 27, 2020 12:38 pm

J.K. Rowling

By Nehru Odeh

The house is surreal and full of childhood memories and as described by Daily Mail Online it is an “old stone building with gothic architecture and, inside, a labyrinth of nooks and crannies begging to be explored in games of hide and seek. Below the floorboards there’s a secret cellar, complete with trapdoor, where spiders, cobwebs and spooky shadows lurk — just the place for a ghost story.”

Welcome to the house that bestselling author of Harry Potter novel series, J.K Rowling and her anaesthetist husband, Dr Neil Murray bought for £399,950. The grotesqueness of the house notwithstanding, it is the building that inspired the bestselling series and not only made her one of the richest persons in the globe at a time but also defined fantasy and magic in the 20th and 21st centuries .

Though the property located in a picturesque village in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, conjures up images of Hogwarts — the fictional school of magic from the Harry Potter books, why would Rowling purchase it?

The truth is, the house harbours more significance for the bestselling author. It is her childhood home. Scrawled on the window ledge in one of the bedrooms is the priceless insignia: ‘Rowling slept here circa 1982’.

The building, which was originally built as a school was converted into a residential dwelling at the turn oof the 20th century and it has vaulted ceilings and even a cupboard under the stair, just like the one Harry was holed up in by his evil Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon beore he arrived at Hogwarts.

Many are questioning why Rowling would want to buy a house in a village she has long professed to have been miserable living in: two reasons.first is her disdain of the Middle England type of community her childhood espouse. Second, the love for her mother, Anne – who died in this home of multiple sclerosis aged just 45 — plays a large part in her wanting to maintain the childhood memories it evokes

As regards her disdain of the Middle England type of community, she said In a 2012 interview with The Guardian : “We’re a phenomenally snobby society.’ She then went on to say: ‘It’s the class I know best, and it’s the class where you find the most pretension, so that’s what makes the middle classes so funny.”

So why does this house mean so much to Rowling? And why is she suddenly so determined to preserve and protect it?

Despite her famous philanthropy (she lost her billionaire status because she’s given so much to charity) her reasons are as likely to be personal as altruisic.

Maybe the clue lies in an interview Rowling gave in 2012, when she spoke about her French ancestry, on her mother’s side. Revealing how her great-grandfather had won a Croix de Guerre award for his bravery in World War I, Rowling made perhaps her most telling comment on her motive.

“I married someone who’s got a vast Scottish family — a clan, really — which is fabulous. But I wanted to have something I could show my children and say: ‘Look, I also have a family, I also have a background.”

And now she has a childhood home, packed with memories, that she can share.