Theme Day Wrapped - Harry Potter Day July 2026

Twice a year, we organise a Harry Potter themed town trail, including a town-wide scavenger hunt, magical menus and a super fan quiz in the evening. In this blog post, I’m going to recap our biggest Theme Day yet: Saturday 25th July 2026.

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For the past 5 years, we have been organising events through our shop. Our biggest, most popular, events have always been our Harry Potter Theme Days. We encourage everyone to dress up and follow a magical trail around Axminster. At every stop, there is a hidden Harry Potter item for you to find. Complete the trail and return your sheet to be entered into a draw (as a thank you for taking part and being silly with us.)

We always throw one of these crazy days on the closest Saturday to Harry Potter’s birthday. So, on 25th July 2026, we threw possibily the most exciting event yet! If you were there, hello again! It was lovely to meet you! If not, don’t worry. I’m going to recap it all here, and if it sounds like something you’d like to experience, join us for our next Theme Day on Saturday 7th November 2026.

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The Trail

This year we had 25 stops on our trail! For the first time ever, wizards and witches had the choice between an easy or a hard trail, where the shop names were scrambled just like in Chamber of Secrets.

As always, we are so grateful to every local business kind and crazy enough to take part. We love bringing love and recognition to the whole town as well as our little shop. For a full list of participants, see the end of this post.

The Model Railway

We love changing up our shop window, and this is our most magical installation ever.

Now on display in Swish and Flick is a fully functioning model railway, showing the Hogwarts Express journeying from Hogwarts back to Diagon Alley in London. The model is on display in store, so come by and see it in person!

The Fete on the Green

Did I mention this was our biggest event ever? We teamed up with Axminster Carnival to bring Harry Potter Day to the heart of Axminster.

The Harry Potter day fete on the church green was a notable stop on the trail, with magical characters to meet and lots of crafts. All proceeds raised went towards Axminster Carnival, which will be parading Saturday 19th September 2026. Make sure to visit the town that night for a brilliant show!

Professor Snape

Obviously our favourite Professor took to the streets of Axminster to share in the magical spirits. Snape has kindly attended all our events, and if you were lucky enough to meet him, we’d love to hear all about it in the comments.

Magical Eats

We love it when our fellow Axminster businesses go above and beyond for the day.

Both the Railway Kitchen and Higgler Coffee came up with creative, whimsical menu additions for the day. I can confirm, the gingerbread Weasleys were delicious.

The Quiz

And finally, we wrapped up the day with a full on Harry Potter Quiz at the Guildhall! Hosted by Professor Snape, this quiz asked some of the toughest Harry Potter questions ever conceived.

We would like to give a shoutout to some of the teams.

Thank You

And with that another Harry Potter Theme Day has come to pass. We love organising these for you, but they’re only possible with the help of a whole community.

We would like to thank all the staff at Swish and Flick for writing the quiz, arranging the trail and keeping on their toes both in shop and on the green on what was a busy but magical day.

Another huge thank you to Axminster Carnival for a brilliant fete that brought the whole community together. We look forward to the procession Saturday 19th September 2026.

We’d also like to thank Jess and Patrick for building and installing our incredible Hogwarts Express. We love it so much and so does everyone who has seen it.

Professor Snape. Your presence is somewhat scary, but always welcome. Thank you for coming, and if you would like to see more, follow our Snape on Instagram!

And of course we would like to thank all the local businesses of Axminster who took part in our theme day:

The Castle Inn

The Recycling Shop

Castle Garage

Axminster Printers

Wild Roots Studio

The Fabric Shop

The Guildhall

Harris & Harris Estate Agents

The Railways Kitchen

Axminster Train Station

Beacon Games

Archway Bookshop

The Whitty Bar

Axminster Heritage Centre

Busy Bees Florists

Higgler Coffee

The George Hotel

Snaps

Bramble & Bliss

Glynis Johns Interiors

Acorn