Original subtitles

Tom ward (narrates): In the Philippines

an island complex, with a hidden hoard of treasure.

There's a $4 million fortune stashed somewhere

near this derelict place.

A relic of old england transformed in to a magical realm.

Nowadays cloister walk is world famous.

And in america a notorious prison where a champion was born.

You went from rock bottom to a place of incredible fame.

Decaying relics,

shadows of lost worlds.

Ruins haunted by the past,

their secrets waiting...

To be revealed.

In the Philippines a neglected site in Manila bay

once held the fortune of a nation.

From above this place looks a bit like a tadpole,

it has a bulbous head and a long winding tail.

A series of mismatched buildings crowd the rocky island.

Big buildings either machine shops

or sleeping quarters or office buildings,

all in a state of ruin.

One, it seems to go on forever,

it could have housed thousands of people.

The scorched interiors offer some clues about what happened here

and below ground the puzzle continues.

It could be a railway tunnel but there are no tracks

and inside is a labyrinth of rooms.

A small box could be the key that reveals its secrets.

There's what looks like an old oven,

it's known as the vault...

But who built it and why?

The answer could solve a mystery

that has shrouded this island for decades.

Somewhere near this site could be hundreds of tonnes of silver

worth a reported $4 million.

The strategic and economic value of Manila

was such that the Americans fought and won a battle here in 1898.

The Americans built banks and a stock exchange

so, Manila had a lot of money in it

and moving through it.

The economy of the Philippines then was very good,

the treasury vault had $60 million in gold bullion

and 23 million pesos in silver coins.

Local expert Armando hildawa

knows just how important corregidor was for the defence of Manila.

The two square miles of corregidor island

were pivotal to securing america's foothold in Asia.

And so it's decided the key to holding the Philippines

is Manila bay.

How do we hold Manila bay?

The island of corregidor.

The Americans built a world beating barracks

for their troops.

This is stopside barracks,

built in 1914,

this was then the longest American barracks

in the world.

To house...

Maximum of 8,000 men

of the 59th coast artillery regiment.

It had a chapel, it had a library,

a bowling alley, indoor swimming pool,

washroom area, mess hall.

To defend Manila against naval attack

five gun batteries were built on corregidor.

This are what we call 12 inch disappearing guns.

Now, there are two guns

at the second floor hiding behind concrete walls or parapets,

when this gun will fire, the tip of the gun

does not go up, no sir.

The entire gun goes back and up above the wall

and after firing it will hide behind the wall again.

Now, from the sea the enemy

could no longer pinpoint the location.

The Americans essentially conceive of corregidor island

as like a floating battery.

That will bar the approaches to Manila bay to any hostile fleet,

and they consider this to be an almost impregnable obstacle

to any adversary.

During world war ii this mighty American fortress

was finally put to the test...

Even today, traces of the bitter

pacific war litter the ground here.

Every now and then we find

some world war two artefacts like 50 calibre shells,

30 calibre bullets, fragmentation grenade,

sometimes a helmet or part of a helmet.

In 1941,

general Douglas mcarthur, commanded the us forces

defending the Philippines against Japanese attack.

On December 8, 1941,

the Japanese began their invasion of the Philippines,

general mcarthur,

actually declared Manila an open city

and as an open city it meant that,

it would be surrendered without a fight.

The us troops retreated to corregidor

but they were determined to cheat the Japanese of Manila's wealth.

Mcarthur,

emptied the banks in Manila of all their money

and especially their precious metal, gold and silver

to deny it to the invading Japanese.

On December 27, 1941,

a flotilla of small ships and tugboats

bought this huge mother load of gold and silver across the bay

to store it in corregidor.

It was also imperative

that vital wartime papers were protected.

This is an original vault, not a treasury vault,

it's more for confidential top secret documents and maps.

Along with us troops from all over the Philippines,

mcarthur retreated to the bastion of corregidor.

But its defences were no match for the Japanese bombers.

When the first Japanese air raid was conducted,

all of this buildings were evacuated,

as you can see this was very much exposed from aeroplanes.

The onslaught forced the Americans

to retreat even further.

The malinta tunnel was an underground storage

facility for supplies, food, water, medicine and gasoline.

End to end in a straight line, 2 miles long.

Once we enter on top of us 300ft of solid rock.

There are no dead ends, all the laterals

and sub laterals are connected at the far ends,

this is a feat of engineering.

You can fit 8,000 men inside the tunnel.

General mcarthur made the decision

to move his hq in to the malinta tunnels.

This was then the office of general mcarthur

when he was inside malinta tunnel,

now eventually the gold bullion, the silver coins,

from the treasury vault were transferred here.

Meanwhile above ground the battle raged on,

and another of corregidor's military buildings was hit.

This was then the hospital building.

This would have been the surgery room,

an operating table here,

scrubbing area for the doctors.

This had a capacity of 1,000 beds.

To escape the relentless Japanese bombardment,

the injured were also crowded into the tunnels.

This is the underground hospital section of malinta tunnel.

It was only to accommodate 300 beds

but when the Japanese bombed the hospital building on top side

all patients transferred here bringing that figure to 1,000.

One of the nurses was quoted as saying

the blood almost dried up here, it was about one inch thick.

In the malinta tunnel,

life descended in to bedlam

for the men that were sheltering there.

For months as the Japanese continued to attack,

thousands of us and Filipino troops were trapped in the tunnels.

The island bastion of corregidor was the last remaining obstacle

to the Japanese expansion across the pacific.

With the billions of dollars

worth of gold and silver up for grabs,

the Japanese had no intention of giving up

and hope of a us rescue mission was very remote too.

Given the blow that the Japanese administered

at Pearl harbour,

no fleet's gonna come and rescue these guys.

The island's defences were no match

for the Japanese attacks.

The ammunition that the anti-aircraft artillery

had was only effective up to about 24,000ft,

once the Japanese pilots realised this,

they simply flew above that level and continued

to drop their deadly cargo on to corregidor.

A desperate plea for ammunition

capable of reaching the bombers was sent out.

The us submarine trout

was dispatched to send 3500 anti-aircraft ordanants

to Americans who were trapped at corregidor.

And it had a very perilous mission ahead of it.

To reach corregidor

the submarine had to dodge both the Japanese naval blockade

and the us defensive mine field below Manila bay.

But it manages to make it all the way to corregidor

and deliver its cargo.

But now there's a problem.

As it gets back in the water it's riding too high,

it needs ballast.

So, they actually requested 25 tonnes of sandbags

but corregidor had no sandbags that they were able to spare.

And so someone has a bright idea,

why don't we use bars of gold as ballast and get them out of here

and get them safely back to the United States.

With enemy bombs raining down on them,

the us servicemen had to get the bullion

out of the tunnels.

They had to transfer from the tunnel to the south dock

20 tonnes of gold and silver

so, you can't just carry it in one truck,

it has to be several trips of several trucks.

So, eventually the gold was bought out

to the south dock...

To board the USS 'trout'.

So, this stuff is literally

used as the equivalent of scrap metal

to weigh down this submarine so it can make its escape.

The USS 'trout' left here

February 4, 2:30 in the morning, early morning

but it stayed submerged

under the water in Manila bay until evening,

the next day it had to float out.

But more than 400 tonnes of silver pesos were left behind.

And as the Japanese

tighten the siege of corregidor island,

the us forces on the island decided to try it...

Hide all the bags of silver coins.

They had taken out of the banks of Manila

to deny them to the Japanese,

they literally went out to sea from corregidor island

with 45 tonnes of silver coins

and they sank them in caballo bay with no great precision.

The us finally surrendered two months later.

The Japanese sent American prisoners of war down

to search for the treasure they themselves had dumped.

But the prisoner divers sabotaged the retrieval efforts.

When they got to the wooden crates,

they cracked it open with the crowbars

and then the Japanese who were lifting the silver coins,

the crates popped open and scattered

all of the coins in the Sandy bottom.

Whilst some coins were retrieved, most of the silver treasure

lay on the sea bed until the end of the war

when the us re-took corregidor.

The crater here was in 1945 during the re-taking

a 1,000 pound American bomb made an almost direct hit,

see boom crater fragments ricochet

but some veterans told me before

some bombs were mixed with a chemical,

thermite or white phosphorus.

Hot white molten shrapnel,

were melting their way deeper in to the steel barrel.

But most of the Japanese were by now holed up

in the very same tunnel

that had once sheltered the Americans.

Scorch marks reveal what happened next.

The Americans poured in gasoline

mixed with napalm,

the Japanese knew what was going to happen next.

The Japanese knew there was no escape,

but there was still an honourable way

to die for the emperor.

They blew themselves inside the tunnel

using dynamites, bombs and grenades

which ignited the gasoline at the same time.

Wham, this entire tunnel system collapsed,

flames shot out from all the openings.

More than 2,000 Japanese troops had committed mass suicide,

when the war was finally over,

shrines were built to commemorate the thousands of American,

Japanese and Filipino lives that were lost here.

To this day,

treasure hunters still search for the missing silver pesos

in the waters around corregidor.

So, this is what our money look like

during the American period,

you can see on the reverse here it's a very small s,

coins minted in San Francisco for use in the Philippines.

More than half the silver was never recovered

and is still lying somewhere in the waters around this site

and this is why,

coins still occasionally wash up on the beach to this day.

In Jefferson city

on the banks of the Missouri river is a relic of old america.

From the outside it looks kind of like the gloomiest

castle you've ever seen.

Bars on the windows, strong high walls

and you know exactly what you're looking at.

'Time magazine' once described this prison

as the bloodiest 47 acres in america.

The state of the place reflects its tumultuous history.

Parts of it are boarded up,

in one section the entire roof has collapsed.

They burned all the buildings

and the impacts were still being felt

when I came here in 1968.

The inside is as grim as the outside.

And the cell blocks are still bleak and foreboding.

Along with these...

Crumbling walls, these spooky rooms,

there's even a gas chamber thrown in for good measure.

You get this sense of confinement and claustrophobia.

You can only imagine what it would have been like to be a prisoner

bought in to one of these cell blocks,

all the other prisoners looking down to see who the new person is.

Yet one of these men being looked down upon

would eventually rise to the top.

He went from rock bottom

to a place of incredible fame.

When you hear this person's story,

it really is a version of the American dream.

A champion was forged within these walls,

but there are also plenty of darker chapters

in his prison story.

Former deputy warden Mark schreiber

has firsthand experience of its bloody history.

I worked two officer homicides in here

and I worked a lot of inmate homicides

and everything from escapes to narcotics

to assaults, you name it.

Mark began working here in 1968,

the same year that James Earl ray assassinated dr Martin Luther King,

having broken out of this very prison.

Escape attempts were common

as inmates desperately tried to flee a place with a fearsome reputation.

This is the Missouri state penitentiary.

The prison actually was opened in 1836,

the very week that the alamo battle was going on in Texas.

Schreiber recalls a recent discovery that helped shed light

on those early years.

The prison administration was under a court order

to put in an exercise yard for men on death row.

So, when the contractor came in and started the excavation,

the contractor hit something very solid.

And what it hit was the buried cells.

So, there are these very old cells

that date back to the mid-19th century

and this is a really rare find,

barely any structures like this survived

going this far back.

These buried cells are relics from a time when Missouri

was still wild west territory.

Missouri was almost frontier land at that time,

as the state expanded the prisoner population expanded,

the building was also expanded

and it housed a lot of famous prisoners over the years.

If anybody's claustrophobic or you're scared of the dark

we don't want you coming in here.

Jb firebug Johnson started

a major riot in the prison in the 1870s,

where they burnt down a bunch of factories

and you can see where firebug Johnson,

was down here in the dungeon cells

and the story goes that the whipping post

used to be located in this area.

They would open up the wooden door,

and they would let the inmates then see the guy getting whipped.

To keep from going insane he'd take a button of his uniform

and flip it in the dark

and he'd spend all day looking for the button

and when he got out he wrote a book called 'buried alive'.

Eighteen years in the Missouri penitentiary.

After firebug Johnson was released in 1900,

the prison expanded.

A gas chamber was added and by the 1930s,

it included a five storey hospital,

a morgue and several factories.

And the prison was the economic base

for the city of Jefferson for many years,

it was a huge operation

with 2 million sqft of building space.

Despite its sheer scale it's still bursting at the seams.

One time they had almost 4,000 some inmates in here,

terribly crowded.

You can only imagine the frustrations,

the humiliations of being incarcerated

and that makes every prison a potential powder keg.

On September 22, 1954,

a spark ignited the powder keg.

A couple of inmates pretended to be sick,

they got the attention of a guard,

some other inmates were able to overpower the guards

and take their keys,

then they ran up and down the cell block,

unlocking as many cells as they could.

Within hours thousands of prisoners were roaming free

and fires were raging in various parts of the prison.

I remember the '54 prison riot

and I was in the third grade

and we had just moved up here about a month before.

The first friend I made in Jefferson city,

his dad was the superintendent of the Missouri highway patrol

and of course the prison riot was... was really something.

The impacts were still being felt when I came here in 1968.

The burnt out buildings still visible today

are testament to the intensity of those fires.

When the dust had settled, 50 inmates had been injured

and four were dead.

Into this cauldron of fire arrived a young man

with a troubled past.

One day in June 1950 a young black man

who was around 20 years old walked into these walls.

He had been arrested for armed robbery

and was sentenced to a term of five years.

His name was Charles liston, everyone called him Sonny.

The 24th of his abusive father's 25 children,

Sonny had grown up surrounded by poverty and violence.

Sonny as a child is picking cotton

and when he's 16 years old

he's already a strapping young man,

he's over 6ft tall, he's over 200 pounds,

his strength is such that he is used to...

Help break up strikes.

And it didn't take long for Sonny to pick a fight on the inside.

Reports are that he mostly kept to himself,

but there's also reports of him brawling

with other inmates and that's an activity

that can land you in a lot of trouble

and maybe solitary confinement.

But in Sonny liston's case it landed him somewhere else.

The boxing ring.

The prison's boxing club held monthly exhibitions bouts

and Sonny's natural talent was soon spotted.

The chaplain was also the prisons athletic director,

reverend shaplan and he saw,

that liston had what it took.

And so this, chaplain takes liston under

his wing, mentors him, coaches him,

and turns liston in to a really fine boxer.

The boxing ring would have been down here on the lower yard

and hundreds of inmates would have come and watched Sonny box.

No-one ever defeated Sonny liston.

Liston dispatched the prison heavyweight champion

in front of nearly 3,000 howling inmates.

You can imagine

in a time with very little entertainment

for the prisoners how exciting it was to see

some of these boxing matches.

They bought what was supposedly the best heavyweight boxer

in st Louis Missouri

to fight against him and he only lasted two rounds.

With his great potential becoming clearer,

a campaign began to get Sonny released.

Two different chaplains in the prison

helped develop his talent,

they advocated for his parole and they arranged for him

to be supervised and trained as a boxer after his release.

In 1952,

the big day finally came and liston was paroled,

he took a job as a labourer at a steel mill

but this was just a brief stop on the road to fame.

Once he turns pro in 1953,

he reaches the heights of his sport

really quickly, has an amazing record.

The man with the biggest hands ever recorded in boxing history,

soon established himself as the knockout king.

In 1962,

ten years after being released,

liston went up against Floyd Patterson,

for the heavyweight championship.

Wasn't much of a contest,

he knocked him out in 2 minutes 6 seconds.

Despite reaching the pinnacle of his sport,

Sonny couldn't shake his criminal past.

He assaulted a policeman, he stole the policeman's gun,

but he also was reputedly tied in with mob figures

who supported his career.

Two mafia figures purchased majority shares

in his contract

so he's literally associated with figures in the underworld.

In April 1963,

Sonny liston passed through these gates once again

only this was a triumphant return.

When liston goes back to the prison,

he received an incredibly warm greeting,

inmates are cheering,

they're excited, he's going around shaking hands,

it's a triumphant moment

for someone who had been incarcerated there.

The champ had come back to show his gratitude to the staff,

and to visit the prisoners.

He ate with the inmates in the general dining hall,

and it was by all accounts

just an incredibly powerful meaningful experience

for the prisoners to see...

This hero who had been one of them

and then had become this worldwide superstar.

One normally doesn't think of prison as a place

that folks get nostalgic about

but liston actually returned here several times,

he'd become something of a legend

not just to the inmates but to the staff as well.

And there's pictures of him with the warden, with the barber,

in the old boxing ring,

really getting in amongst it all.

They saw that he had a lot of potential

and so they helped Sonny develop that potential

and he never forgot those people here in the prison.

In 1965,

a career defining moment arrived for the heavyweight champion,

it's a fight that everyone knows but it's not liston

that most people remember.

Sonny liston's achievements as a boxer

are nothing short of miraculous,

but he was never the darling of the press,

and what he's most famous for...

Is getting knocked out by Ali, in under two minutes

and essentially becoming posturised

in that famous photo of Ali, you know, looming over his,

his defeated foe.

The result was so surprising that some claimed a fix.

To this day,

Ali's knockout blow is sometimes referred to as the phantom punch.

Controversy would follow Sonny even in death.

In 1971 he was found dead at his Las Vegas home,

some suspected a heroin overdose

but others still believe he was murdered.

There was a lot of talk about Sonny liston

later on when his life ended

about how tragic that was

because a lot of the offenders felt that,

that the some of his managers

and people like that had really taken advantage of Sonny.

His popularity with the inmates secured him legendary status here,

and a faded mural on the prison wall painted by an inmate

is testament to Sonny liston's enduring legacy.

Even though it was supposed to be closed down

after the notorious 1954 riots,

the prison continued to operate in to the 21st century.

It took 50 years from the time I was in the third grade,

to the time that I was a deputy warden in 2004,

it took that long for them to actually get it closed.

In 2019,

the abandoned complex was struck by a tornado

that ripped the roof off a block,

liston's former home

and tore down sections of the prison wall.

Mark now enjoys looking after the prison's

vast historical archive

and leads tours providing insight,

into the institutions long and eventful life.

And of course its most famous inmate,

Charles l Sonny liston.

Liston's story is a story of rags

to riches of success against all the odds,

in some ways it's the story of the American dream,

but we should make no mistake,

a place like the Missouri state penitentiary,

is a place where dreams go to die.

And the chances that another Sonny liston,

are gonna emerge from this sprawling privatised

for profit prison system seem vanishingly small.

Nestled in the picturesque English countryside

is a grand structure with a spellbinding past.

This is wiltshire which is world famous

for its sweeping valleys and of course stonehenge

which everybody knows but only 30 miles away

there's this gem which is very unknown.

It has beautiful gothic details on all its exterior walls

but it also has very strong looking gateways.

There are massive stone walls

and foliage climbing all the way up the side.

As you get closer you can see that it's really still quite intact,

there are courtyards and hallways,

it's a very sophisticated assembly of buildings.

You can see right across the site

these very traditional latticed windows,

and one of them in particular plays a very important role

that's cemented its place in history.

A photographic image captured right here,

was a revolutionary moment for the modern world,

and later this same building became famous on the silver screen.

Millions of people around the world actually know it,

they just don't know they know it.

This place hides a magical secret,

that's been seen the world over.

Dotted around the features that all Harry Potter lovers

will instantly recognise.

In the middle of one of the rooms

you see this giant cauldron

sat on a stone plinth.

Nowadays cloister walk is world famous

as a crowded school hallway

filled with wizard's hats and wands.

But everything here

owes its existence to a formidable woman,

who lived 800 years before jk rowling's books

were turned in to one of the world's most successful film franchises.

Emma hitchings is passionate about the history,

of this remarkable place.

Arriving here you immediately feel the sense of history,

you can see the scars what's happened here before,

and what the building may have looked like.

You don't know where to look first.

There's so much history and it's all just so beautiful.

So, this place was founded by a woman

who was a pioneer of her time.

She went by the name, ela of Salisbury,

and she lived a remarkable life.

Ela was a noble woman, she was born in 1187,

and she was the only child of the 2nd Earl of Salisbury.

And when he died when she was nine years old,

she very unusually not only inherited his title

but also all of his money.

Now, an immensely wealthy woman,

ela's ward the crusader king Richard lionheart,

used her to benefit his own family.

King Richard married Ella off to William longsby,

who was Richard's illegitimate half brother

and so he got through Ella,

his titles 'cause he had nothing to start with.

Longsby was made sheriff of wiltshire

by Richard's brother and successor king John.

This connection gave ela custody of an item,

of profound importance.

In 1215,

a band of rebellious medieval barons forced king John of england,

to agree to a laundry list of concessions,

it later became known as the great charter or in Latin,

magna Carter.

Magna Carter was one of the most famous documents

of medieval england,

signed by king John in 1215, with William longsby at his side.

Magna Carter was a historical landmark,

an early bill of rights

that would form the basis of england's entire legal system

and a precursor to the us constitution.

A copy was sent to every county in the country,

and the copy that went to wiltshire,

went to the sheriff of wiltshire who was William longsby.

Magna Carter had clauses on individual rights

and women's rights too...

Which ela would later use to her own advantage

when he husband went missing.

When William longsby was returning from war,

he was shipwrecked and thought lost.

With longsby presumed dead,

men of influence began circling

with greedy eyes on ela's wealth.

One knight even attempted to force her into marriage.

Only by quoting a section of magna Carter itself,

was she able to refuse the offer.

It's like something out of a medieval courtroom drama.

Ela used her savvy knowledge of this now ancient legal document

to win her case.

Ela supposedly quoted the eighth clause

of the 1215 charter,

that stated women were no longer obliged to remarry,

it reads...

No widow is to be distrained to marry,

while she wishes to live without a husband.

But in fact longsby was very much still alive,

and on his way back to england.

Remarkably longsby made it back home,

but he died shortly after his return.

It was alleged that he was poisoned

although that was never proved.

With longsby's untimely death,

the heartbroken ela inherited the title of sheriff of wiltshire,

and she chose to remain a widow for the rest of her days.

The tragedy was the inspiration for lacock Abbey.

On 16 April, 1232,

ela laid the foundation stone of her Abbey,

partly as a tribute to her husband

and partly as a place to retire to later as a nun.

When ela came to the Abbey,

she bought all her papers with her including the magna Carter,

and it was kept here in one of the safe rooms.

She continued to live here for the rest of her life,

and when she died she was buried in the Abbey church.

Ela's copy of the magna Carter remained here for centuries,

before it was finally handed over to the British museum in 1945.

It is one of only four known copies

of the original charter still in existence,

but before this the document like the Abbey,

found its way to ela's descendant

William Henry fox Talbot.

William Henry fox Talbot moved in to the Abbey in 1827,

and he was an incredibly intelligent man,

he was a classicist, a scientist,

he was interested in everything.

In the 1830s,

fox Talbot was working on an invention

at his home lacock Abbey,

when he had a breakthrough moment.

It was born out of his love of painting,

or rather his lack of talent for it.

Fox Talbot's wife and daughters

were great watercolourists capturing great

landscapes and life drawings,

and in fact some of their paintings

can still be found at lacock Abbey today.

William wasn't so good with a pen and paper,

so, he tried to find a scientific way

to capture the scenes before him.

During a time of great innovation in the field of photograph,

Talbot made a stunning discovery.

There had been experiments to capture images

on paper by others before him,

but fox Talbot went on to create

the three primary elements of photography.

Developing, fixing and printing.

Talbot already knew about the light sensitivity

of a compound called silver chloride,

so he tried to use that to capture the world around him.

He took a piece of paper and soaked it in...

Sodium chloride or ordinary table salt.

He brushed one side of the paper with silver nitrate

and when that reacted with the salt that produced silver chloride,

which is a light sensitive paper.

He called it his photogenic drawing

and using the sensitive paper that he'd created,

because he was still seeing it in his mind as a way of keeping up

with the watercolour abilities of his wife and daughters.

Fixing the paper to the inside of small boxes,

he waited for the exposure to light to take full effect.

These became known as mouse trap cameras,

partly because they were so small

and partly because, his wife kept finding them all over the place.

He invented that process here

and the first ever photographic negative was taken

of the auriol window upstairs overlooking the south lawn,

which really makes this Abbey the home of photography.

Talbot of course died with no idea

of what his invention would go on to become,

he could have had no conception of the popularity

cameras, selfies, television and even of course

the big silver screen.

170 years after that very first photograph,

far more sophisticated cameras than talbots came to lacock,

when the entire Hollywood machinery descended on the Abbey.

In 2000, jk rowling's

overnight hit of the young very famous wizard Harry Potter,

was adapted for the big screen,

and filming commenced all across the UK.

However a very special location was needed

to lend face for the main setting of the Harry Potter movies,

the Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry,

and what better location to stand in for Hogwarts than lacock Abbey.

It's really easy to see why...

Warner Bros would choose to come and film 'Harry Potter' here,

there's such a weight of history,

it's the perfect place to show Hogwarts corridors.

The rooms at the Abbey took on completely new lives.

Our warming room became professor quirrels classroom.

Our chapter house was used

as the place where Harry found the mirror of erisaid.

Professor snapes classroom was in our sacristy.

The whole cast can be found coming up and down these corridors,

when they're going through the school.

By all accounts the film crew had a great time on set,

but the building is over 700 years old,

so, they had to be careful.

You didn't want props or lighting falling down.

Handed over to the national trust in the 1940s,

the Abbey is now a mecca for Potter fans the world over.

Walking around there having the chance

as a true Harry Potter fan,

to be able to get your picture taken in that famous hallway,

that would be fantastic.

It's also a place where tourists

can learn about the other extraordinary characters,

that help create this atmospheric film set.

From ela to Henry Talbot to Harry Potter,

this place has always been home to extraordinary heroes.

Captioned by ai-media ai-media. TV