Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Filming Locations

The film opens with a Death Eater attack: Voldemort's followers kidnap the wandmaker Ollivander and destroy the Millennium Bridge, which collapses on screen. The pedestrian bridge links Bankside with the City of London. The shoot took place in March 2008. The book is set in 1996, so the bridge, opened on 10 June 2000, is an anachronism that the film simply ignores. Today it stands intact and you can walk across it.

Visitor guidance: A public footbridge; walk it from Bankside to the City of London.

Dumbledore takes Harry to persuade the former Potions professor Horace Slughorn to return to Hogwarts. Night scenes were filmed in Lacock village and the cloisters of Lacock Abbey for three nights from 25 October 2007, from 5 pm to 5 am. Residents of the street were asked to black out their windows with dark blinds. The main scene reported was Harry and Dumbledore's visit to Slughorn's house. Lacock also appeared in the first film, and the pin marks the abbey rather than the exact house.

Location precision: Reports name the village and the abbey cloisters but not the house used for Slughorn's home; the pin marks Lacock Abbey.

Before filming began there was talk of leaving the UK, but the crew still shot in Scotland. On the weekend of 6 October 2007 they shot Hogwarts Express scenes in the misty, dewy air around Fort William. The production also returned to Glen Coe and Glenfinnan, both seen in earlier films, to keep the landscape consistent. The pin marks Fort William railway station, not the exact stretch of track used for the train shots.

Location precision: The source names Fort William but not a precise spot; the pin marks the town's railway station.

The screenplay wanted a snowy setting for the Hogwarts Express, so the crew filmed the train in Norway on the Rauma Line, including the scene where Harry and Ron talk about the Unbreakable Vow Snape had sworn. The location was close to the village of Bjorli. The railway runs 114.2 kilometres between Åndalsnes and Dombås, and Bjorli is one of five stations still in use.

Location precision: The film credits only the area near Bjorli; the pin marks the village of Bjorli.

Dumbledore and Harry travel to a cave where Harry helps him drink a potion that hides another Horcrux, Slytherin's locket. The crew had scouted Cape Wrath in Scotland, but the exterior of the scene was filmed at the Cliffs of Moher in the west of Ireland. The cave interior is one of several CGI sets. The cliffs run about 14 kilometres along County Clare, and about 1.1 million people visited in 2022.

Location precision: Only the cliff exterior was filmed here and the cave was a digital set; the pin marks the cliffs generally.

Visitor guidance: Public coastal cliffs in County Clare, visited by about 1.1 million people a year.