Discover the Forbidden Forest

Harry Potter fans can meet enormous spiders and bow to a Hippogriff as the newest permanent addition comes to the Warner Bros Studio Tour, just outside London.

The Forbidden Forest opens on March 31, and includes 19 huge trees, each with a 12 foot diameter, as well as showing the craftsmanship which went into creating the Forest’s magical creatures, plus the techniques used by filmmakers to control the weather.

Tickets cost £39 for adults, £31 for children aged five and above. Book at www.wbstudiotour.co.uk

Taste the high life

Visitors to Bristol could check in to one of the most unusual places to stay across the whole country this summer, with the opening of a new treehouse on a crane.

Crane 29 from Canopy & Stars is set on Bristol’s Harbourside, and uses sustainable building materials and plants to attract birds and bees to the roof, right in the city’s industrial heart.

One-night stays cost from £185 and will be allocated via ballot, with stays planned from late May to September. All profits will go to Friends of the Earth.

The first ballot draw is due to take place on April 10, with a second draw in July. Register for a chance to be among the guests at www.canopyandstars.co.uk/crane29

Step back to East Anglia's past

Two new historic sites are opening to the public in East Anglia in the coming months; a prehistoric mineshaft in Norfolk where early humans extracted flint for tools, and a Suffolk castle poorhouse.

Greenwell’s Pit at Grime’s Graves flint mine, dating back 4,500 years, is one of 400 at the site. The only such example open to the public, special tours from English Heritage will take visitors into the depths where the tools which shaped Stonehenge may have originated.

Booking is now open for public tours on June 1 and July 14, priced £29.30. Tours for English Heritage members are also available.

In the next-door county, Framlingham Castle opens its ‘Poorhouse’ — the former workhouse — in June after a six-month conservation project.

A new exhibition inside will detail the 900-year history of the castle, once home to Mary Tudor. Entry costs from £8.90.

english-heritage.org.uk