Harry Potter fans force £430 million power cable to avoid Dobby’s "grave"

A £430 million power cable linking the United Kingdom and Ireland has been rerouted after Harry Potter fans objected to plans that would have taken it through the fictional grave of Dobby, the beloved house elf from the wizarding series.

The Greenlink interconnector, which connects Britain’s National Grid with Ireland, was originally planned to pass underground near Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where Dobby was buried in the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, The Guardian writes.

The fictional character’s burial site has become a pilgrimage spot for fans, who regularly leave stones inscribed with messages such as “Here Lies Dobby”. The National Trust, which manages the beach, has asked visitors not to leave stones because the site is environmentally sensitive.

The cable project’s route came to public attention after Greenlink project manager Simon Ludlam identified the planned underground section at Freshwater West during a BBC interview.

After the interview was broadcast, the company received a large number of complaints from Harry Potter fans.

“We did the shot, we finished, I went back to London, and they then aired it a couple of weeks later. And we got hundreds of calls, I mean, hundreds of calls.”

Ludlam said he initially had no idea why people were contacting the company. A colleague eventually explained the concern.

“Apparently we’re going to go straight through Dobby’s grave”.

Ludlam said he was initially surprised by the reaction because Dobby is a fictional character.

His colleague, however, made clear that fans considered the issue important.

The project team subsequently asked planners to identify an alternative route that would avoid the location associated with Dobby.

“A lot of people were very happy about that, and the project is now going [ahead] and Dobby’s happy.”

The final route will still pass close to genuine archaeological remains. Ludlam said the planners avoided the fictional burial site while navigating around real historical remains dating to the Bronze Age.

In the end, he said, “we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains, but we avoided Dobby’s grave”.

The archaeological remains include urns associated with human burials, giving the area significance far beyond its connection to the Harry Potter films.

The Greenlink project is designed to provide a major electricity connection between Britain and Ireland, with the cable stretching about 125 miles (200 kilometres) to County Wexford.

The episode highlights the unusual cultural influence the Harry Potter franchise continues to have, with a fictional location becoming important enough to influence the planning of a major infrastructure project.

For fans visiting Freshwater West, however, Dobby’s “grave” remains a symbolic memorial rather than a real burial site — and, thanks to the revised route, one that will remain untouched by the new power link.

By Sabina Mammadli