In this chapter, we will be covering the second half of our lessons on British wizarding villages, specifically mentioning Ottery St. Catchpole, Tinworth, and Upper Flagler. This (plus the three villages we covered last week) is not an exhaustive list of every single wizarding village in the United Kingdom. However, it does hit a lot of the "hot spots" that are better known. Since populations can fluctuate, it's not entirely logical to cover every single one, as there may be many new ones in ten years (and many wizarding villages with smaller populations may have dropped off the official list). Without any further ado, though, let's begin looking at our towns and cities for this lesson.
I've brought this map to help illustrate the different areas (or, specifically, counties) where these cities and towns are. The three counties we'll be looking at today are Cornwall, Devon, and Yorkshire, if you'd like to take a moment to glance over the map and familiarize yourself with their general locations.
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Ottery St. Catchpole
In 1693, after the International Statute of Secrecy was put into effect, several wizarding families sought the support and security of living in a largely magical community, and thus established Ottery St. Catchpole. While still not an all-magical wizarding community, this area usually boasts a rather high percentage of magical families. It is located in Devon, England the southern tip of England just below Wales.
As you can see from the map, Devon is a bit cut off from the rest of England in the "tail" of the country, which makes it more attractive for magical persons to settle there in large numbers. Another point in its favor is that Muggles of Devon attempted to burn fewer witches than those in many other parts of the country, and therefore already had a higher prevalence of magical folk in their population. Because of this (or perhaps because the people of Devon have become accustomed to unknowingly living among Muggles), many things that outsiders would consider odd (such as strange architecture that looks like the handiwork of a drunken bricklayer, unexplained noises, and funny bouts of weather) don't make any of the townspeople bats an eye.
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There are quite a few well-known wizarding families in Ottery St. Catchpole, namely the Fawcetts, Scamanders, Trebonds, and Weasleys, though this only scratches the surface. Ottery St. Catchpole remains one of the most highly populated wizarding villages in the UK to this day, and likely will for many years to come.
