📍Leith, Edinburgh, UK
1993 – 1997“J.K. Rowling grew up in Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean, and first imagined Harry Potter on a delayed train from Manchester to London in 1990. Three years later she arrived in Edinburgh with a baby daughter, a suitcase of handwritten notes, and very little else. She rented a small flat in Leith, lived for a time on state benefits, and kept writing. Walking with the pram was the surest way to get her daughter to sleep, so she would push it to cafés like Nicolson's on South Bridge, haul it up the stairs, order a single espresso and write in the warmth for as long as she could. Edinburgh's crooked closes, old graveyards and castle on its rock seeped into the world she was building. In 1995 she finished Philosopher's Stone on an old manual typewriter. She has since made her life and home in Scotland, and walking tours of the city now trace the places where an unknown single mother wrote one of the best-selling books in history.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today