The Great Hall

The great hall in Peirce was a second-choice location for the Harry Potter films.

If you haven't been on campus for a while, this one might be new to you. But it is everywhere, most likely because the Great Hall in Peirce does vaguely resemble Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Potter films. The 2001 on-screen location is actually a composite of several sites—none of which are in Ohio, or North America, for that matter—including, in the scenes of broomstick flying lessons, Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England.

However, that castle has more than 830 years on Peirce (the first recorded mention of it was in 1096) and had the benefit of being in the same country where the rest of the movies were filmed. (Oxford's library also made like Hogwarts in several scenes, according to the Internet Movie Database.) Simple logic would seem to imply that traveling nearly 4,000 miles to shoot in Gambier might not have proven cost-effective. But, still, wouldn't that have been cool?

"The Harry Potter dining hall one has got to be the number-one legend I've dealt with," said Veronica Hauad '03, who, as assistant director of admissions, is responsible for organizing student-led campus tours.

"I heard that on my tour," she said.

This, of course, is part of the problem. It is only natural to believe that what one learns on a college tour is, in fact, true. But because student guides are encouraged to share their own stories and don't follow a script, sometimes trueish information sneaks through. (See "riot proof.")

Stamp, the College historian, can only roll his eyes in gentle exasperation. "The things they tell students on tours, so many lies," he sighed.

Hauad tries to keep the embellishment to a minimum. There's a board in the Admissions Office for tour guides labeled "Fact or Fiction" on which the staff debunks any tour tales making the rounds.

The Harry Potter story stayed on the board for a year.

Tour guide Chase Kreuter '10 remembered hearing the story her freshman year and repeating it. She learned the truth "only from Admissions getting mad at us for saying that on tour."

While Kenyon never had a shot at hosting flying broomsticks, it was, in fact, considered for two other projects.

Location scouts for the Robin Williams prep-school film Dead Poets Society visited campus in 1988.

"We had most of what they wanted but they were worried about the weather during their shooting period," said Stamp. There was concern about snow.

The movie ended up using Saint Andrew's School in Middletown, Delaware—where it snowed during filming. (That showed 'em.)

Then in 1993 Stamp escorted director Fred Schepisi as he scouted for his Albert Einstein love story I.Q. The film starred Meg Ryan as Einstein's niece and Tim Robbins as the suitor who wooed her with the help of Einstein, played by Walter Matthau. Schepisi needed a location to stand in for Princeton in the 1950s. Kenyon had the right look, but they ended up going with the actual Princeton. Hard to take that personally.

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