In Wales, a protected beach is polluted by the influx of Harry Potter fans

To pay tribute to one of the characters from the Harry Potter saga, fans go to the beach where his death scene was filmed. There, they leave socks or colored pebbles that contaminate the environment.

In Wales, tourism by Harry Potter fans is polluting the protected beach of Freshwater West, a natural site which served as the setting for a famous scene in the latest installment of the British saga, The Deathly Hallows. Since then, it has become a place of pilgrimage for fans of the young wizard. “Potterhead”as they say in English, have even built a memorial there in tribute to Dobby, one of the key characters in the story. They leave socks and all sorts of trinkets there, which contaminate the environment of grey seals, porpoises and seabirds.

It all starts in the second opus, The Chamber of Secretswhen Harry meets Dobby who introduces himself as “the house elf”. The connection with this Welsh beach of Freshwater West is explained by Ludovic, an absolute fan of the saga: “This is where Dobby died and was buried by his friends, Ron, Hermione”.

“It’s part of a Harry Potter pilgrimage, like a rock star’s grave. You want to leave a sock there. I’ve seen people leave colored pebbles, little pieces of us there.”. Socks are very symbolic in the Harry Potter universe. House elves are enslaved and to free them, they must be given this garment.

The problem is that these socks and the painting of the pebbles cause pollution, according to Lloyd Nelmes. This manager of Sea Trust Wales, a local nature protection association, has nothing against the young wizard: “Absolutely not, we love Harry and Dobby and it’s great that it brings tourists to this beach. But we would just like the objects left on Dobby’s grave to be made of biodegradable materials like wood or paper, this would avoid contaminating the plankton with microplastics”.

During his future pilgrimage, Ludovic therefore promises to leave only dried flowers and a shell on Dobby’s grave.