The prettiest new LEGO set is a display-only rendition of the most famous fictional boarding school of all time: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the primary setting for J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter franchise. It's out September 1, but you can preorder it now on Amazon.
In the books and the movies, the castle is depicted as mythical; both students and teachers are in awe of what surrounds them, and over the course of seven books (or eight movies), the castle evolves into a character unto itself.
The four founders, Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin, infused the school with all sorts of mysterious enchantments and spells—so much so, that over the course of seven instructional years, a single student will only discover a fraction of what the castle has to offer. That makes it a perfect fit for LEGO, which similarly prides itself on intricacies and hidden secrets.
The LEGO Hogwarts Castle and Grounds is 8.5 in. (21 cm) high, and its footprint is 13.5 in. (35 cm) wide and 10 in. (25 cm) deep. You begin by building the cliff, surrounded by water, that the castle is situated upon. This is the most relaxing part of the build—sorting the different colored 'rocks' that comprise the cliff's face, and applying differently colored blue tiles to suggest white foam and crashing waves.
For longtime Harry Potter fans, there's something special about seeing the cliff—just the cliff—as the Hogwarts founders must have seen it in the 10th century, right before construction commenced.
The cliff also creates room beneath the castle for the Chamber of Secrets, the secret room that Salazar Slytherin secretly built to purge all Muggle-borns from the school—and the Underground Chambers, which the Hogwarts professors enchanted to protect the Sorcerer's Stone. The Chamber of Secrets includes a statue of Slytherin's head, plus a Basilisk. The Chambers includes facsimiles for four of the professors' trials: Professor Sprout's Devil's Snare, Professor Flitwick's Flying Keys, Professor McGonagall's giant chess set, and lastly, Professor Dumbledore's Mirror of Erised.
Then you build the Castle itself—first the buildings, then the towers. Owing to its scale, there are several parts of the set that are hanging on by single connection points. That made things a bit more fragile than I would have liked, especially the signature Viaduct bridge that connects the Courtyard to the Grounds. But it was nothing that a bit of crazy glue couldn't fix. LEGO is self-reinforcing, and a dab of glue with Q-Tip, here and there, made the entire set feel sturdy.
You build both the Durmstrang ship and the Beauxbaton carriage from the fourth book. The designers dedicate a section of the grounds to the greenhouses, which makes clever use of clear bricks. There's a beautiful rock path that leads down to a tiny boathouse. But other than the underground rooms, there are no other interiors of the castle. You build the Great Hall and the Astronomy Tower and Dumbledore's Office, but you see them as you would from the outside; there is no lifting of roofs to see any additional Easter eggs. But there is a bigger castle set available if that's what you really want.
LEGO currently sells two versions of Hogwarts Castle. The first debuted in 2018; it's a 6000+ piece behemoth with several fully realized interiors. It has moving staircases and a Great Hall with four long tables. It comes with 27 microfigures of the series' main characters and four minifigures of the Hogwarts founders. Despite being an adult-oriented set, it is designed with interactivity in mind; everything in the set feels disproportionately wider—probably to better accommodate play (see it at Amazon).
The new LEGO Hogwarts Castle and Grounds is less than half the piece count of its older, bigger brother, but despite being simpler, it also looks more elegant by comparison. And that's because the new castle is built for display instead of play. The towers are slender and proportional to the surrounding structures, because there's no diorama on the inside of them. The castle is situated for three-dimensional aesthetic balance, rather than linear accessibility for someone to stage scenes.
What's missing, and what LEGO has yet to offer, is a massive, ultimate castle that combines the best of both worlds—that has fully realized interiors of all key locations, plus the more accurate visual presentation of the latest model. But the sheer scale of such a set would likely make it prohibitively expensive.
Which one you prefer—the older, grander castle, or the smaller, more visually pleasing one—is a matter of personal taste. But for me, the longer the new Hogwarts castle has been sitting on my shelf, the more I've enjoyed having it there.
At this stage in my life, a set's playability is slightly less important than its final visual presentation. I'll probably play with a set once or twice after first building it. But realistically, it spends the majority of its existence on a shelf, looking pretty. And for my purposes, the new Hogwarts' castle's simple beauty (and lower price point) would make it the right choice.
The LEGO Hogwarts Castle and Grounds, Set #10323, retails for $169.99, and it is composed of 2660 pieces. It is available to preorder at Amazon now, with a release date of September 1.
For more, check out our picks for the best LEGO sets for adults, as well as our favorite Harry Potter LEGO sets.
