"Don't Touch Dobby's Grave": £800 Million UK Undersea Power Grid Alters Route

Undersea Cable Linking UK and Ireland
Route Redesigned After Protests by Harry Potter Fans
Dobby’s Stone Grave Preserved by Devoted Fans

It has come to light that an undersea power grid project in the UK, worth approximately 800 billion won, changed its route off the coast of a beach in Wales. This was done to avoid the stone cairn "grave" of the house-elf Dobby from the Harry Potter series.

The house-elf character Dobby from the movie series "Harry Potter." Warner Bros.

On August 10 (local time), Yonhap News quoted BBC and other outlets as reporting that "Harry Potter fans seeking to protect the on-screen grave of the fictional character Dobby have forced a change in the route of a major UK power grid construction project." The fact of the route change became known after a project executive shared the behind-the-scenes story in a recent podcast.

The house-elf Dobby is a beloved supporting character throughout J.K. Rowling's original novels and the film series. The final scene in which this character dies saving Harry was filmed at Freshwater West Beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK. Since the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1" in November 2010, tourists have flocked to this location.

The cairn created by fans is inscribed with phrases such as "Here lies Dobby, a free elf" and "Dobby, rest in peace." The grave has grown larger each year as fans bring stones and socks from around the world. While the "Shell Cottage" safe house set built for the filming has since disappeared, the fan-made grave remains. The site is managed by the UK heritage agency, the National Trust.

Traces of fans remain at Freshwater West Beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales, the filming location of the final scene of Dobie. BBC

The power grid in question is Greenlink, a 430 million pound (about 824 billion won) undersea cable connecting the Great Island substation in Ireland, operated by transmission operator EirGrid, with the Pembroke substation operated by the UK’s National Grid. It has a capacity of 500 MW, consisting of a 160 km undersea section beneath the Irish Sea, a 24 km onshore stretch in Ireland, and a 6 km underground section in Wales. The Welsh landing point was planned at Freshwater West Beach.

Fans learned about the construction through a BBC broadcast. Simon Ludlam, the project manager for Greenlink, explained that after reaching an agreement on the landing method with relevant agencies, landowners, beach owners, and residents, he responded to a request from "BBC Wales" to allow on-site filming. He described in great detail how the cable would run under the sea and the sandy beach, emerge over the dunes, and then continue along the road.

Once the broadcast aired, there was an outpouring of public complaints. Ludlam said, "I genuinely received hundreds of phone calls." In fact, he did not know who Dobby was. Ludlam recalled, "A colleague said, 'I think we're going straight through Dobby's grave,' and I replied, 'Who is Dobby?' When I said that it was just a fictional character, my colleague insisted, 'No, this is a really, really big deal.'"

As a result, the project company assigned a separate design team to devise a route that would bypass the grave. Ludlam said, "The revised route comes rather close to a real Bronze Age site, but we avoided Dobby's grave," and added, "Many people are happy, and even Dobby is happy." He mentioned that "every project has its own challenges, and in some cases, even myth-like obstacles."

From the perspective of the local economy, the impact of Dobby’s grave is significant. According to CNN in the United States, Pembrokeshire County Council estimates annual tourism revenue at 604 million pounds (approximately 1.157 trillion won). The annual number of visitors exceeds 6 million, and 23% of all local jobs depend on tourism.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.