Wool's Orphanage

• Type: Muggle Orphanage
• Location: London, England
• Owner/Residents: Mrs. Cole (matron), Tom Marvolo Riddle (former resident), Amy Benson (resident), Dennis Bishop (resident)
• Key Features: A grim, square building with high railings, a bare courtyard, and colorless, sparsely furnished rooms.

Wool's Orphanage is the name given in the film series to the Muggle institution in London where Tom Marvolo Riddle was born and raised. In the novels, it is never named and is referred to simply as “the orphanage.” It is described as a large, forbidding, and squalid building that reflects the bleakness of Tom Riddle's early life. The orphanage's connection to the wizarding world began on New Year's Eve, 1926. A destitute young witch, Merope Gaunt, having been abandoned by her Muggle husband Tom Riddle Sr., stumbled to its steps. She gave birth to a son and, with her dying breaths, instructed the matron, Mrs. Cole, to name him Tom after his father and Marvolo after her own father. Merope Gaunt died within the hour, leaving her son to be raised as an orphan. Tom Riddle spent the first eleven years of his life at the orphanage. During this time, he discovered his magical abilities, which he used to frighten and dominate the other children. He was known to be a difficult child, though he was always polite to the adults. The staff, including Mrs. Cole, were privately scared of him due to the strange incidents that occurred around him. These incidents included hanging another boy's rabbit from the rafters and terrorizing two children, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop, in a cave during a summer outing. The orphanage's most significant recorded event occurred in the summer of 1938, when Professor Albus Dumbledore visited to offer the eleven-year-old Tom Riddle a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. During this meeting in Riddle's bare room, Dumbledore confirmed Riddle's magical nature and confronted him about his bullying and theft. He discovered a box of “trophies”—stolen items from other orphans—and warned Riddle that such behavior would not be tolerated at Hogwarts. This encounter marked the beginning of the long and adversarial relationship between Dumbledore and the boy who would become Lord Voldemort.

The orphanage is a pivotal location in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It serves as the setting for a key memory that Albus Dumbledore shares with Harry Potter. This memory is crucial for understanding Lord Voldemort's origins and psychology.

• Revealing Voldemort's Character: The visit to the orphanage provides the first concrete evidence of Tom Riddle's cruelty, his desire for solitude and superiority, his penchant for collecting trophies from his victims, and his early exploration of his unique powers. This foreshadows his later creation of Horcruxes from objects of great significance.
• Establishing the Dumbledore-Voldemort Dynamic: The initial meeting between Dumbledore and Riddle sets the stage for their lifelong conflict. Dumbledore is the first person who is not intimidated by Riddle and who understands the darkness within him.
• The Cave Connection: Riddle mentions taking two children to a cave by the sea, an event that left them terrified. This is a direct reference to the seaside cave where he would later hide Slytherin's Locket, one of his Horcruxes.
• Nature vs. Nurture: The orphanage setting highlights the theme of how one's choices, not their circumstances, define them. Raised without love in a bleak environment, Tom Riddle chose to embrace power and cruelty, contrasting sharply with Harry Potter, who, despite his own loveless upbringing with the Dursleys, chose the path of love and friendship.

• Mrs. Cole's Office: A small, spartan office where Mrs. Cole first spoke with Albus Dumbledore about Tom Riddle's history.
• Tom Riddle's Room: A small, bare room on an upper floor containing an iron bedstead, a hard chair, and an old wardrobe. It was here that Dumbledore found Riddle's collection of stolen items and set the wardrobe on fire with magic to demonstrate his own power.
• Courtyard: A bare courtyard is mentioned as part of the orphanage grounds.

• The name “Wool's Orphanage” originates from the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. In the novel, the institution is consistently referred to only as “the orphanage.” (film)
• In the film, the building used for the exterior shots is the 1840 building of the Royal Masonic School for Boys in Bushey, Hertfordshire. The interior shots were filmed in a former linoleum factory in London to create a cold, industrial, and institutional atmosphere. (film)