With the archive initially founded as a place to house the wealth of material from the Harry Potter films as shooting wrapped, the UK has continued to be a preferred destination for Warner Bros to film some of its biggest tentpole productions.
Need a broomstick? There are Firebolts, Nimbuses and Nimbus 2001s galore, as well as various characters’ brooms, such as Mad-Eye Moody’s (Picture: Tori Brazier)
The archive itself is split into three major areas… that houses mostly flatpack set pieces for ongoing shows or oversize props, like dragon backs or chess pieces from Harry Potter – things that would require a forklift truck to get to or move, as Steven Fouché, director of the WBD Archive, puts it.
That’s why you can find everything here from Mr Weasley’s blue Ford Anglia and Harry’s invisibility cloak to Godric Gryffindor’s sword, a Horcrux or two and dozens and dozens of wands, trunks, brooms and costumes.
Potter items even include miscellaneous trophies from a Room of Requirement scene, stacks of Daily Prophets and various written material, as well as fake food like mounds of chocolate dessert for the feasts and balls held at Hogwarts, after production moved away from using real food.
A framed timetable for the Hogwarts Express is also peeking out nearby, fully complete, despite the fact it won’t have been seen as anything other than a glimpse in the background of a scene (the train runs through stations including Uxbridge, if you’d like to know).
‘The detail in Harry Potter is astonishing. There are pamphlets for the Quidditch world cup that were never seen on screen, but you can actually turn through them and they’ve got player profiles,’ says Fouché.
In among the archive’s impressive collection of broomsticks (the Nimbus, Nimbus 2001 and Firebolt are all present and correct), we learn the distinction between things like generic student and stunt brooms, as well as the ‘hero’ or ‘beauty’ broom.
‘Quite often, especially with weapons, you’ll have the main hero or beauty one that you’ll do close-ups with, but then if that’s being used in a stunt or in any form of action, then they’ll make rubber or soft ones so that if an accident does happen you don’t have people injuring themselves,’ Fouché explains.
Most of the beauty broomsticks from Harry Potter are out on display at either the Leavesden or Tokyo studio tours, or one of the two travelling exhibits, with another two planned to start later this year.