J K Rowling


	*St John the Baptist Lodge No 39*

Film Industry & Gandy Street.

J K Rowling.

That Diagon Alley of Harry Potter fame is supposedly based on Exeter’s Gandy Street where J K Rowling went to EXETER University.

Many consider Gandy Street to be one of the most charming, and interesting streets in Exeter. Lined with bijou gift shops, bistros and restaurants, ...She was inspired by places in and around Exeter, including the Black Horse Inn in Longbrook Street and Gandy Street which was transformed into Diagon Alley ...


	From the website Exeter Memories


		Rowling took her first job as a postgraduate with Amnesty International before moving to Portugal to teach English. In her spare mornings, she started writing about a boy wizard called Harry Potter, developing her ideas for her first book.

	Rowling wrote most of the first Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone in a café in Edinburgh when she wasn't teaching French and looking after her young daughter. In 1996 the book was accepted by Bloomsbury and published to international acclaim in 1997. She was inspired by places in and around Exeter, including the Black Horse Inn in Longbrook Street and Gandy Street which was transformed into Diagon Alley in her novels.

Rowling was described as a day-dreaming student while at Exeter when she was made an honorary Doctor of Letters at the University in 2000, by Professor Peter Wiseman.

Gandy Street looking towads the museum.

Brice's Old Exeter Journal, one of the city's first regular newspapers was published from Gandy Street between 1740 and 1744 by Andrew Brice, and his wife Sarah, who were based at the sign of "The Printing Press". In the 19th century the Exeter and Plymouth Gazzete had an office in the street.

The building on the left entrance to the street, during the 19th century, housed the general store Civet Cat belonging to the Grant brothers, that sold glass, toys and other items. It then became the printers James Townsend, responsible for producing the Western Counties Railway Guide, and the more familiar Timothy Whites in the 20th Century. It is now the Bristol and West Building Society.

Toisa's Cross pictured at St Nicholas Priory was on the right corner of Gandy Street and the High Street..


Coolings bar was once the Albion Inn, while the Queen's Vaults on the corner of Little Queen Street was part of the Queens Hotel run by Paul Collings, a Spanish born servant of Sir Harry Smith, whom he accompanied in the Peninsular War and at Waterloo. Other lost inns of Gandy Street include the Volunteer Inn, and the City Arms. In former times, Gandy Street offered more mundane shops and offices, including the Exeter Brick Co and a Registrar of Marriages.

	New Buildings, is an interesting little arcade in Gandy Street, providing jewellery, ethnic clothing and hairdressing, and is one of those nooks and crannies that gives the area its charm

		*You can hire Gandy Street for any Event*