Aug 11, 2026
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Add us on GoogleA $580-million energy project in the U.K. and Ireland unexpectedly riled up Harry Potter fans, and the outcry actually changed the planned route of an underground power cable.
The fans were incensed that the Greenlink interconnector, a 125-mile long submarine power cable that connects Ireland and the U.K., was planned to make landfall and “go straight through” the “grave” of Dobby, a beloved character from Harry Potter, BBC reported. The scene in the movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1 that depicts the death of the character Dobby was filmed at Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales.
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The Greenlink interconnector went online in 2025, but a recent podcast interview with a former manager of the project revealed the sway that Potter fans had on the cable’s ultimate route.
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The power of Potter
In an interview on The Energy Revolution podcast, Simon Ludlam discussed the “mythical” story of how Potter fans got the plans for the Greenlink interconnector changed.
Ludlam said that after finally getting agreement from all stakeholders — authorities, landowners and local residents — about where the cable would make landfall, he agreed to a “quick” interview with BBC Wales on the project.
“So we stood on the beach and I explained that, you know, ‘here’s the sea, the cable’s all underground,” Ludlam shared on the podcast. “It goes [...] up into the dunes and then right at the top of the dune there, it then exits and then goes into the roads and off we go.’
“And I explained it in great graphic detail. We did the shot. We finished. I went back to London and [BBC] then aired it I guess a couple of weeks later. And we got hundreds of calls. I mean hundreds of calls.”
Ludlam’s colleague then recommended that they respond to the calls, because “apparently, we’re going to go straight through Dobby’s grave.”
“I said, ‘Dobby? I don’t know Dobby,’” Ludlam recounted. “And he said, ‘Well, Dobby in Harry Potter, you pointed out very clearly where his grave was and that the cable’s going to go directly through it.’ And I said, ‘Well, he’s a fictitious character in a fictitious book.’”
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Dobby’s cherished memorial
Dobby’s “grave” is a mock memorial created by fans at the site where filming took place, comprised mostly of stones with messages painted on them. Since it’s a cherished site for Harry Potter fans, Ludlam said his colleague argued the Dobby situation was “very, very serious.”
“And so we got back with the planners and we discussed exactly how to reroute the cable so we wouldn’t go anywhere into Dobby’s grave,” said Ludlam. “Actually, we went quite close to some real Bronze Age remains. But we avoided Dobby’s grave. A lot of people were very happy about that.”
Those possible Bronze Age human remains were found by an archaeological evaluation conducted in 2019 for Greenlink and were mentioned in Pembrokeshire council planning documents, according to BBC.
The evaluation reported finding “the rim of an inverted pottery vessel whose fabric suggests a Bronze Age Collared Urn c.1700-1500 BC; typically associated with human burial. The pottery vessel was uncovered within the remains of a low-lying mound and it is suggested that it may have originally been an upstanding earthwork likely to be a Bronze Age round barrow or burial mound.”
Ultimately, both the real and fictitious resting places were not disturbed by the project, which Ludlam noted is now complete, “and Dobby’s happy.”
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Rebecca Payne has more than a decade of experience editing and producing both local and national daily newspapers. She's worked on the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, Metro, Canada's National Observer, the Virginian-Pilot and Daily Press.
