Entrance Gates

The Main Entrance Gates to Hogwarts are located a short distance from Hogsmeade Station. The gates would be opened on the first day of term and carriages pulled by Thestrals would take students up to the castle.

Description

The Entrance Gates are made of magnificent wrought iron and are flanked by two columns topped with statues of winged boars. Just a few yards from the gates is a small guardhouse with a tall chimney.^[1]

History

During the 1993-1994 school year, the gates were guarded by Dementors attempting to apprehend Sirius Black.^[2] In 1996, before the students travelled past the gates, Professor Flitwick and Argus Filch stood guard checking off the names of students and searching them before allowing them to continue up to Hogwarts. The gates were protected by anti-intruder jinxes, which were cast by Albus Dumbledore over the summer of 1996.^[3]

Behind the scenes

The winged boars that frame the gates may be a reference to Chrysaor, the brother of Pegasus, who is sometimes depicted as a winged boar.
The design for the winged boar statues that flank the gates featured on the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was based on that of Il Porcellino, a bronze fountain of a boar (sculpted and cast in around the 1630s) located in Florence, Italy.