Filming locations in Northumberland

England's far north-east is castle country, and Northumberland keeps the grandest of them all. Alnwick Castle, a medieval fortress that is still very much a family home, is the reason most screen pilgrims come. Its broad outer bailey is where the first Harry Potter films staged Harry's very first broomstick lesson, the green lawns over which Madam Hooch barks her instructions. Standing on that grass, you are quite literally on the spot where a generation learned to fly.

What makes Alnwick such a satisfying day is that the castle leans happily into its fame. On most open days it runs broomstick-flying sessions on those same lawns, a small piece of theatre that children adore and that turns a sightseeing stop into a proper outing. Opening is seasonal, since the Percy family still lives here, so it pays to check the dates before you set off and to allow a good half day for the grounds, the state rooms and the gardens next door.

The castle sits a short walk from the centre of Alnwick, a handsome stone market town that makes a natural base. From here the rest of Northumberland opens up easily by car. The coast is the great surprise: a string of wide, near-empty beaches at Bamburgh and Embleton, backed by dunes and crowned, at Bamburgh, by another vast fortress on the sand. After the formality of Alnwick, those long windswept strands feel like the county exhaling.

Inland, Hadrian's Wall marches across the moors a little to the south, close enough to fold into the same trip. The Roman frontier and the Harry Potter lawns make an oddly complementary pair, two very different ideas of England's edge. Come in late spring or summer for the longest light and the most reliable castle opening, pack layers whatever the forecast says, and treat the empty beaches as the reward for a day spent on screen history.