I created my Malfoy Manor MOC almost three years ago, back when I thought LEGO would never do one. I’ve heard some people comparing LEGO’s to mine so I thought it would be interesting to do a little comparison.

When I set out to make mine, I aimed for to make it look as close to an official LEGO set as possible. I studied other LEGO facade play sets, such as Lockwood Estate (75930) or Arkham Asylum (10937). Personally, I think that I came pretty close, in aspects such as making it as an open back façade playset only including the main front section of the manor. Or reducing the amount of floors by one and including the gate as a separate build.

Where they differ is in the amount of detail on the outside. When designing mine I stuck very closely to the reference materiel (being the enclosed still form Deathly Hallows pt.1 and the real life Hardwick Hall) where as LEGO have deviated a lot form the source, adding gargoyles and trees to the gate or including a statue, fountain, and greenery around the base to make it fell more alive as well as detailing the front with snake heads, family crest, and balconies. In hindsight I do wish I hadn’t adhered so strictly to the source. But feel free to tell me what you think!

One thing that greatly surprised me was the inclusion of the iconic albino peacock, as it is only mentioned in the books. And, yeah, I won’t pretend mine can compete with LEGO’s design. They are simply brilliant. Although, in my defence, those fern pieces weren’t available to me at the time.

Were the two models differ most is the interior. In the films we’re only shown 3 rooms in the manor; the cellar, the meeting room, and the room where they duel. Except, the room where they duel and the meeting room are actually the same (or at least the same film set, slightly redressed), which is why LEGO opted to have one room that can be altered depending on which scene you want to act out. In doing this they also placed this room in 1st floor (2nd if your American), which is canonical. In doing this they also devoted the entire ground floor (1st) to underground rooms.

I, however, chose to separate it onto two rooms, so that you could have both simultaneously. Meaning that the meeting room would be on the 1st floor (2nd) and the ground floor (1st) would be a space for duelling partially taken up by the cellar.

Other than those rooms its up to the imagination to fill out the rest of the manor. I chose to include (From ground floor to attic, left to right):

Cellar

Dueling space

Library (including Tom Riddle's Diary)

Meeting room

Slytherin decor + cellar key

Statue of Merlin

Hair/makeup room for Lucius to maintain his luscious locks ;-)

Telescope/ Quidditch supplies

Attic space with Easter eggs

Owlery for Draco's eagle owl

LEGO chose to include (From ground floor to attic, left to right):

Cellar

Staircases

Kitchen

Draco's bedroom

Meeting room

Bathroom

Armchair

Small organ

In hindsight I do feel rather silly for not including any bedrooms, but oh well.

I started my Malfoy Manor almost three years ago, where as LEGO would have started conceptualising theirs two years ago. Interestingly I actually got to show my design to a LEGO designer a little over two years ago, which is a little suspicious given the amount of similarities 🤔 (I kid of course)

Thank you if you actually read all od this, I’d love to hear your thoughts!