A three-storey Victorian terrace in Windsor conceals a hand-built miniature Diagon Alley, a Harry Potter-themed cobbled lane created during the Covid-19 lockdowns, and the house is now on the market with a guide price of £800,000.
From the outside, the yellow brick, bay-fronted property offers typical period charm, with fireplaces and stripped wooden floorboards. A rear extension houses the kitchen and family room, opening onto the garden, but it is the side return that sets this home apart.
A magical surprise in the side extension
Most homeowners would use the extra space for a utility room or cloakroom, but here the side extension contains a miniature version of Diagon Alley, the fictional cobblestone shopping district from the Harry Potter series. The replica includes shopfronts such as Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, Ollivanders wand shop, and Florian Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour, along with a street sign.
The first glimpse comes from the sitting and dining room at the front of the house, where the cobbled lane with little Victorian shop fronts is visible. The structure took five months to plan and around six weeks to build, using over 2,000 screws to construct the MDF framework.
Built for the owner's daughter
The magical world was created for the owner's daughter, then aged six, during lockdown. Owner Dylan told the BBC: "It's about four metres long, two metres wide. So she can go into the real shops, she can go up the stairs. There's a reading nook, there's a Gryffindor common room above the sweet shop, lots of little shop windows and things like that."
Now that his daughter is 12, the alley is used less often, and its future is uncertain as the three-bedroom house goes on the market. Dylan said: "It's of sentimental value. My mum made the shop signs. I don't really want to get rid of it but if anyone really, really wanted it and made an offer I would be open to that."
Home and listing details
Aside from the Harry Potter lane, the house includes three double bedrooms, a loft room, a luxury bathroom, a Shaker-style kitchen, and an enclosed low-maintenance garden with a wooden Wendy house. It is listed with Hardings Estate Agency at a guide price of £800,000.
The property gained attention after the estate agent post was shared on TikTok by the account Housing Horrors, drawing admiration on social media for the replica lane.
