Exploring Malham Cove: A Harry Potter Filming Location

Hello lodgers! If you are a long-term viewer of our channel you will know how much we love visiting movie and television filming locations and how much we love the Harry Potter films.

Malham Cove is featured in The Deathly Hallows Part One film. It is around an hour and a half from us so we thought we would jump in the car and head out to climb up to the top and see the famous filming location for ourselves. What’s more, we decided to do it when the ground was thick with snow, just to give it an extra magical (and bleeding freezing) feeling

If you google the filming location then it does seem like the actors never actually went up to Malham Cove but were in fact in a studio and the backdrop of Malham cove was added afterward but it’s still an iconic scene in the film.

Malham Cove is located 0.6 miles (1 km) north of the village of Malham, North Yorkshire, England

The Area

Malham Cove is a large curved limestone formation located about 1 km north of the village of Malham, North Yorkshire, England. It was formed by a waterfall carrying meltwater from glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age over 12,000 years ago. The cliff’s vertical face is about 260 feet high, and the top of the cove is a large area of deeply eroded limestone pavement, a rare pattern rarely seen in England. The resistance of the hard limestone has led to the survival of very high cliffs, making it a well-known beauty spot and rock climbing crag within the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

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The local village has a large car park which we easily found with the help of Android Auto and Google. The car park charge was £5.50 for over two hours and up to 24.

With the help of Google again we set off on foot with navigation on our phone map. It told us it would be a 37-minute walk from the car park to the top of the cove.

You can turn right out of the car park and head through a back street or left and head through the center of the village. The village has a pub, tea room and restaurant although none of them were open at the time and day we were there (Wednesday morning) so you may want to take some snacks and a drink if you want to be guaranteed something to eat.

The walk up to the bottom of the cove has a slight incline which takes you past sheep and a lovely stream. We couldn’t see the ground because of the snow but we imagine it would look lovely in the summer (although the views with the snow were amazing)

If you aren’t a great walker then just getting to the bottom of the cove is enough to see fantastic views which you would be happy with. Of course, we wanted to get to the top to see the Secne in Harry Potter so we took a left turn and headed for the 400 steps. As it had been snowing and the temperature was around minus 2, a lot of the steps were covered in ice. We took it steady and made our way up, stopping every so often to stop our hearts from feeling like they were about to explode.

We aren’t sure how busy this place can get in the Summer but for us in January it was very quiet. There were a few walkers in front and behind but not many. We kept stopping on the way up to turn around and take in the breathtaking views. The sky was blue and the sun was out and it really did look like something from a post card or magazine.

Take your time and it doesn’t take too much effort to get to the top. It does get a little precarious at the top of the walk once the steps have ended and you will have to climb up some slightly larger boulders. For us, it was extra difficult as the snow was quite thick in places making it harder to see where they ended.

At the top

Once you get to the top you will see the climb is worth it. Again, it looked extra spectacular covered in snow with the sun out. We didn’t want to walk right to the edge with it being so slippy so if you want to fully explore the top then it’s probably worth going on a warm spring or summer day

The top of the cove provides a spectacular view of the surrounding area, including the village of Malham

Once at the top, you can continue to walk into adjoining fields and back down into the village. As the snow was thick, we decided to turn around and make our way back down the steps so we knew what to expect. The journey down the steps is easier but you do have to concentrate more to keep your footing.

Even if the cast of Harry Potter didn’t actually make it to the site, it was still a great location to see with our own eyes. It’s a scene that you always remember from the film and we loved the couple of hours or so that we were there.