Guest Post: The Church Across the Street from the Strike & Ellacott Agency’s Denmark Street Office

April 20, 2026 by Leave a Comment

Ed Shardlow visited the church across the street from the Agency office on Denmark Street and sent me some fascinating fotos he took there. I asked him to write up his visit and he obliged me with these notes. Enjoy!

I was in the vicinity of Denmark St a few weeks ago and thought I’d drop in on the Church of St Giles.

John Granger has raised the possibility that the Church of St Giles in the Fields, located at the end of Denmark St, in plain sight of the Strike & Ellacott Agency office, will feature significantly at some point at the climax of the Strike series (see his 2017 post, a 2021 follow-up, and this year’s conversation about the Christian content of Rowling’s Evangeline charm bracelet) . As yet, the presence of this place of worship in close proximity to the Denmark St office has been hidden in the story with no mentions in the text.

The church is like so many in central London – an oasis of stillness open to public visitation in the midst of the busy city. It is steeped in history, while still providing a religious function for believers and a fascinating space for enquiring heathens. When I made my visit, there were a couple of fellow travelers having a look around, and a couple of organists airing the pipes of the instrument housed within.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for as I explored the church. I read the memorials and tombstones, but didn’t spot any Strikes or Evangelines that may have provided Rowling with inspiration. There were of course numerous Christian images and icons which undoubtedly share some symbolism with the Christian imagery in Rowling’s works. But there didn’t seem to be anything particularly relevant to Strike.

The most interesting thing to me was the memorial for Andrew Marvell.

I know Marvell best for his superb Restoration-era booty call, To His Coy Mistress. A marvelous piece of verse, pointing out that life is short, and so we might as well get jiggy while we can. “Had we but world enough and time…”

I took some photos, which I sent to John after my visit. That very day John posted a discussion with Nick Jeffery about the different modes of alchemy, and mentioned Marvell’s interest in alchemy. Which was a fairly major coincidence and perhaps offers us a pointer as to what part St Giles in the Fields may yet play in the Strike saga.

Three Quick Notes from John:

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Guest Posts, Literary Alchemy

Troubled Blood Quiz and Serious Striker Challenge: A Kelly Loomis Guest Post

March 3, 2025 by 2 Comments

Long time reader and Backchannel Moderator correspondent Kelly Loomis wrote to me about a Troubled Blood quiz recently posted at the Robert-Galbraith.com website on the epigraphs in Strike5. I asked her to write it up as a HogwartsProfessor Guest Post and she chose to do it as a challenge rather than a tell-all piece. I haven’t taken the quiz, I confess, but I look forward to seeing if anyone else spots the mistake Kelly has before Team Rowling corrects it!

Hog Pro readers have long been aware of Rowling’s gaffes in editing. Eagle eyed readers back in the Potter era, for example, spotted that Rowling miscalculated how many likely students were at Hogwarts. More recently, re-readers of the Strike-Ellacott novels were gobsmacked to read in Troubled Blood (chapter 46) that Robin Ellacott had attended only two funerals, a count that failed to include the all important plot point of Mrs. Cunliffe’s funeral in Masham that was featured in The Silkworm.

Of all Rowling’s ‘flints,’ this was the one that I remember most vividly. During my first trip through Troubled Blood, after reading “Robin had only attended two funerals. Her maternal grandfather had died just before she dropped out of university…The only other funeral she’d attended had been four years previously, when she and Strike had attended the cremation of a murdered girl in the course of their first murder investigation,”  I literally yelled out loud “What about Matthew’s mother?”

That memory came to mind last week when I received an email from Robert-Galbraith.com, in which there was a linked quiz based on Troubled Blood.  I clicked on it, of course, to test my epigraph knowledge (Faerie Queene!) and immediately spotted an error in one of the questions. None of the answers offered for this question were correct.

Do Team Rowling staff members put together these quizzes? Have they actually read the books? How much input does Rowling have or does she review these pieces before they go out? How many of you Serious Strikers can spot the error? Am I mistaken about the gaffe? Let us know in the comments below!

 

Filed Under: Cormoran Strike, Guest Posts

Guest Post: Dueling Puzzles

August 25, 2024 by 3 Comments

A Guest Post from Randall Voigt about the puzzling intersection of information from Fantastic Beasts and what we learned about Ariana Dumbledore’s death in Deathly Hallows. Enjoy the challenging questions!

In Deathly Hallows, Aberforth and Albus Dumbledore describe the three-way duel with Gellert Grindelwald that resulted in Ariana’s death.  Aberforth says, “I don’t know which of us did it, it could have been any of us – and she was dead” (Chapter 28).  Albus says “I never knew which of us … actually cast the curse that killed my sister …. I dreaded beyond all things the knowledge that it had been I who brought about her death, … that I actually struck the blow that snuffed out her life” and that “Ariana … lay dead upon the floor” (Chapter 35).  But years earlier, as recounted in Secrets of Dumbledore, Albus tells Newt Scamander, “I can’t say for certain it was my spell …. One minute she was there, and the next she was gone …” (Scene 66).

Several things are puzzling here.

What kind of magical spell hits Ariana?  Could it be a spell that makes her disappear, maybe not killing her at all?  Or, is it in fact a killing curse, leaving Ariana lying “dead upon the floor”?  In Secrets, Albus confirms that Ariana was an obscurus [Scene 66];  could it be that she is not killed, or that she is killed but the obscurus continues to exist, or that in either case the obscurus is transferred to Aberforth and/or to Credence? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Guest Posts

Fan Film: Minerva McGonagall and the Phantom Brooch

January 2, 2024 by Leave a Comment

Enjoy!

Filed Under: Guest Posts

Annie, Voldemort, & Orphanages: Were Sirius and Regulus Adopted Blacks?

December 1, 2023 by 5 Comments

A Guest Post from Randall Voigt inspired by watching Annie and reflecting on the curious relationships of the Dumbledores and Blacks in Rowling’s Wizarding World novels, screenplays, and play script: Enjoy!

Why This, Why Now?

My wife and I recently saw the Broadway musical, “Annie,” after having seen it decades ago.  Years after that first event, reading J.K. Rowling’s Half-Blood Prince, Ch. 13, about the London orphanage where Tom Riddle grew up, reminded me of Annie’s orphanage in the musical.  Seeing the play again, and hearing a church sermon about assumptions and expectations (using the film, “The Sixth Sense” as an example), got me thinking (“a dangerous pastime” – “I know”).

Recent Information (From the Past) Concerning Memory

In Rowling’s first Fantastic Beasts screenplay, Sc. 120, Jacob Kowalski is supposed to be Obliviated.  But in Crimes of Grindelwald, Sc. 35, Jacob reminds Newt Scamander that the Obliviating potion “only erases bad memories.”  So, Jacob remembers many of the events of Beasts.  In Secrets of Dumbledore, Sc. 46, Grindelwald extracts Yusuf Kama’s memory of his sister, Leta Lestrange, because Yusuf holds Grindelwald responsible for Leta’s death.  But, Yusuf seems to signal to Queenie Goldstein that he still has some memory of Leta, and that he will act against Grindelwald.  Yusuf does so, later in Secrets.  Maybe this is important in “Harry Potter” – about which, more in a minute.

The London Orphanage

Rowling describes the orphanage matron, Mrs. Cole, as “sharp” but “no novice to gin drinking.”  Mrs. Cole seems to be something like Miss Hannigan, who is in charge of the orphanage where Annie lives at the start of the musical.  Mrs. Cole may be kinder:  Rowling writes that she is “harassed-looking” and “more anxious than unkind” (Prince, Ch. 6).  Mrs. Cole certainly seems to be a nicer person than Mary Lou Barebone at her Second Salem Church (Beasts, Sc. 30). 

Mrs. Cole tells Dumbledore that she thinks Tom Riddle hung “Billy Stubbs’s rabbit,” and that “Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right” after Tom led them into a seaside cave.  For a while now, I have wondered if the orphan Amy Benson might be the same person as Amelia Bones, present as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at Harry Potter’s Ministry hearing (Phoenix, Ch. 7) and later killed, about which Minister Fudge says, “We think [Voldemort] may have murdered her in person …. (Prince, Ch. 1).”  

But, isn’t the London institution a Muggle orphanage?  Maybe some things point to it’s not being so, or not entirely so.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Cursed Child, Fantastic Beasts, Guest Posts