5 Edinburgh Tombstones That Inspired ‘Harry Potter’

PHOTO: Greyfriars Kirk (church), its surrounding graveyard providing the monikers of many Harry Potter characters. (all photos by Barry Kaufman)

We’re coming up on a date that Harry Potter fans have been waiting on for years .

On September 1, it will officially be “19 years later,” otherwise known as the day Harry Potter ships his son Albus Severus Potter off to Hogwarts in the epilogue chapter of “Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.”

The date has been so hotly anticipated that when J.K. Rowling herself incorrectly Tweeted out in 2016 that the day had come, a legion of fans looked up from their butterbeers to issue corrections, prompting the author to tweet:

I got the year wrong: blame #CursedChild! In my head it’s already 19 years later! #BackToHogwarts

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 1, 2016

So add that to the list of things you can blame on “the Cursed Child.”

To celebrate this momentous occasion you may be inclined to head to the U.K. to celebrate the date at King’s Cross station, looking around between platforms 9 and 10 to see if you can spot the Potters, Weasleys and Malfoys making their way through the barrier to platform 9 ¾.

Sorry to disappoint you, but you’re not going to find them.In addition to sometimes getting her years mixed up, Rowling also tends to get her train stations mixed up (she was thinking of Euston Station when she wrote that part) and there is no barrier between platforms 9 and 10. Another reason you won’t them is because Harry Potter, et. Al, are fictional.

But you know who wasn’t fictional? Robert Potter.

You’ll find Mr. Potter and a slew of familiar names at Edinburgh’s Greyfriars’s Kirkyard, just steps from The Elephant House where Rowling penned the first book.

The Potters are featured on the Giles grave in the northern yard, close to the entrance to Greyfriar’s Kirk. What’s interesting about the Potters isn’t the fact that many of them listed on this stone are not buried in this spot, but that J.K. Rowling came here looking for wizard names and didn’t choose “Grizel Arbuthnot.”

Head through the archway in the Flodden Wall to the west and you’ll find yourself at the grave of:

Before he was the inspiration behind Hogwarts’ Professor Minerva McGonagall, William McGonagall was, by all accounts, Scotland’s worst poet. In addition to the ode to really forcing a rhyme seen here, he also penned the infamous minimalist Scottish poem: “I saw a cow. He’s not there now.”

Just beyond the gates of McGonagall’s marker, you’ll find gates that lead to George Heriot’s school, which many see as the inspiration for Hogwarts (without, you know, the wizards and stuff).

Double back toward the Flooden Wall and bear left to find the grave of:

Mrs. Elizabeth Moodie was the inspiration for famed auror Alastor “Mad Eye” Moody, which is indeed one of the rarest honors ever bestowed on a dead person. Take a sharp right from the Baird/Moodie grave to find:

On this side of the Flodden Wall., you’ll find the noble house of black, whose marker was moved here owing to security concerns. Keep left and you’ll find the marker of Margaret Louisa Scrymgeour Wedderburn, whose slightly preposterous name inspired Rufus Scrimgeour, the Minister of Magic in the final Harry Potter book.

And least but not least, following the Flodden Wall we come to:

This is it – Lord Voldmort himself. The grave of Thomas Riddell, who died in Trinidad in 1802 at the age of 26 before inspiring one of the literary world’s most terrifying figures.  The grave itself is so popular among tourists that it’s marked on Google Maps.

Greyfriars Kirkyard is located in Edinburgh on Candlemakers Row.