Harry Potter fans honor Alan Rickman at London station

Harry Potter fans have headed to a London railway station made famous in the wizard books to pay tribute to late actor Alan Rickman.

The Die Hard star lost his battle with cancer on Thursday (14Jan16) at the age of 69, and there has since been an outpouring of tributes from his famous fans, friends and colleagues.

Rickman is best known for playing Hogwarts teacher Severus Snape in the films based on J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, and fans of the franchise have been laying flowers at a special monument inside King's Cross station.

The north London terminal was mentioned in the books and films as the site where young wizards caught the Hogwarts Express to school from platform nine and three quarters, and a monument has been placed where the fictional platform would have stood.

The sculpture, which shows a luggage trolley disappearing into a brick wall, has become a magnet for Potter fans wishing to pay their respects to Rickman, and it has been covered in flowers and messages.

Rickman's Potter co-stars including Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, as well as author Rowling, all mourned the actor's loss on Thursday.

"Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people I've ever met in the film industry," Daniel wrote in a statement posted online. "He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter. I'm pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn't have to do that... As an actor he was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child... I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. Film sets and theater stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man."