Harry Potter fans forced a cable between Britain and Ireland to be rerouted because it ran through Dobbyʼs “grave”

Harry Potter fans have succeeded in rerouting a power line between Great Britain and Ireland that was supposed to pass through a place considered a memorial to the franchiseʼs hero, the house elf Dobby.

This was stated by the CEO of Etchea Energy Simon Ludlam, which was involved in this project, writes the BBC.

The £430 million Greenlink interconnector connects the UK and Irish electricity grids via a cable of around 200km at Freshwater West Beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, where the death scene of fictional character Dobby was filmed in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

After the filmʼs release, fans began coming there to leave painted stones with inscriptions on the elfʼs symbolic grave.

Initially, the cable was planned to be laid directly through this place, the route was agreed with the local authorities. However, even before construction began, Ludlam showed the route the cable would take in an interview with the BBC. And then his company received “hundreds of calls” from outraged fans.

Ludlam said he didnʼt understand peopleʼs reaction at first, because he didnʼt know who Dobby was. After the team explained, the company decided to reroute the power line so that it would bypass Dobbyʼs "grave".

“A lot of people were very happy, and now the project is moving forward — Dobby is happy,” he said.

Interestingly, archaeologists have discovered traces of a Bronze Age settlement near the new cable route. In the trenches, they found a fragment of an inverted ceramic vessel, dated to approximately 1700–1500 BC and associated with burials.

The Greenlink Connector was launched in 2025 and can now power 380,000 homes without "desecrating Dobbyʼs grave".

• This is not the first time fans have managed to protect Dobbyʼs symbolic grave. In 2022, the National Trust, after consultation, decided to leave it in place, but asked visitors not to bring souvenirs there. Fans were particularly asked not to leave socks behind — in the films, it was the sock that helped Dobby gain his freedom.

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