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An Apollonaut travel guide
A studio with a long view.
A wartime aerodrome, a film studio and a decade of filming offer several ways into the story of Warner Bros. Studio Tour London.
On this page
An aerodrome at Leavesden
De Havilland and the Air Ministry created Leavesden Aerodrome in 1940, and aircraft were built here throughout the Second World War.
Later owners included Rolls-Royce, and by the early 1990s the site was disused.
A film studio
In 1994 the hangars became film stages for GoldenEye. From 1999 Heyday Films leased the studio for the Harry Potter films, and Warner Bros. bought it in 2010.
Two new soundstages, J and K, were built for the Studio Tour, separate from the studio’s production facilities.
A tour that keeps growing
The Studio Tour opened on 31 March 2012. Platform 9¾ and the Hogwarts Express followed in 2015, the Forbidden Forest in 2017, Gringotts Wizarding Bank in 2019 and Professor Sprout’s Greenhouse in 2022.
Seasonal features change the tour through the year. The History page offers a longer introduction.
Read at the source
Sources & further reading
- Wikipedia: Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter
- Warner Bros. Studio Tour London: Opening times
Links lead to the original publishers.