Sloane Vaisey (on_air) wrote in find_horcruxes, @ 2009-12-23 20:43:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !broadcast, *wwn, sloane vaisey |
WWN Broadcast - 23 December 1979
Your 6pm News with Sloane Vaisey |
[...] and tonight's WWN Heritage Minute segment will cover a very popular location in these last days of frantic Christmas shopping: Diagon Alley, business hub of wizarding Britain. As far as memories go, Diagon Alley was always there. It cannot be so, of course, but it does go back to the very beginning of wizarding settlements in Britain. One only has to remember Ollivander's sign, stating that they are Makers of Fine Wands since 382 B.C., to understand how far back in our past Diagon Alley's history goes. The centuries-old Gringotts Wizarding Bank also played a major role in making Diagon Alley the business hub of wizarding Britain it is today. Magic might make it easy to travel large distance quickly, it will always be more convenient to have shops right by the bank, and it was even more so back in the days before Ignatia Wildsmith invented Floo Powder. It shouldn't be a surprise, therefore, that all sorts of businesses bloomed around the goblins' institution, going from pet shops such as today's Magical Menagerie and Eeylops Owl Emporium to apothecaries, from clothing stores, predecessors of Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions and Twilfit & Tattings, to cauldron shops. At the turn of the sixteenth century, Daisy Dodderidge built what was to become one of the staple of Diagon Alley: the Leaky Cauldron. With her inn, Miss Dodderidge wanted to create a gateway between the Muggle world and Diagon Alley, still the only one today, centuries later. Between the bank and the shops, Diagon Alley also became a prime location of wizarding culture with the Brookstanton Memorial Library, soon surrounded by many book shops, Flourish & Blotts among them, and publishers like Obscurus Books and WhizzHard Books. Culture goes hand in hand with communication, and so we also find the Daily Prophet's offices and the WWN headquarters on Diagon Alley. As you go frantically from Quidditch stores to stationary shops for last minute Christmas shopping, take a moment as you wait in line at the till to think back on the many generations that did the same over centuries, making Diagon Alley the business hub of wizarding Britain it is today. |