Hobbiton

We couldn’t cycle past the Hobbits!

From Matamata the Movie Set tour bus takes you to Hobbiton, where they filmed scenes in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, which can only be accessed by guided tour.

My (AP’s) expectations were not high for Hobbiton tbh, fearing it would be a bit plastic and tacky - but I was very happily proved wrong. From the start our guide Sam was excellent, and guided our group of about 15 people through the village, pointing out key locations and movie interest. We went up to
Bag End (Bilbo’s house), at the top of the hill, down to Bagshot Row where we went inside a hobbit hole, past the Millhouse, and on to the Green Dragon Inn where we enjoyed a complimentary drink from the Hobbit Southfarthing range.

Walking through Hobbiton your eye continually finds delightful details that make it feel like the hobbits have just left for a moment, and are just out of sight. Curling wisps of smoke from chimneys, a little wheelbarrow full of gardening tools left in the allotment, gently flapping clothes on the line, an unfinished game of chess. The creativeness all about is charming: beautifully painted post boxes, bespoke ironmongery in the shape of leaves, inventive toys in the children’s room; and often showcases who lives behind each hobbit hole. Beehives and honey jars outside the Beekeeper’s; willow, twine and incomplete wickerwork outside the Basket weaver’s; and a watercolour in progress on the easel outside the Painter’s.

Going into one of the snug cosy hobbit holes was just as Tolkien describes. “Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it a was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.” Everything in the interiors was homely, inviting, and meticulously crafted.

We thoroughly enjoyed the tour and were touched by the magic of the place, leaving feeling warm and hobbity. Probably helped by the very yummy cider I had.

Below are some interesting titbits from the tour…

• In 1998 location scouts used a helicopter to search for a place resembling Tolkien's Shire for the Hobbiton movie set. They immediately knew they found it when they flew over the family Alexander’s 1250 acre farm, with its rolling hills, a large lake, and a prominent hill. The farm was untouched by modern development, with no power lines, buildings, or roads visible: just 500 Angus cattle and sheep.

• Knocking on the Alexander family’s door to ask for permission to scout the property for a movie set, they were initially told to ‘f-off’ and come back another time as the family were watching a rugby match.

• When they built the first Hobbiton set for the LOTR trilogy it wasn’t made to be permanent and was made of polystyrene, plywood and untreated timber. The New Zealand Army helped to bring in the heavy equipment needed to make a mile of access road into the site and initial ground works.

• The oak tree above Bag End is not real but made from a 26-tonne oak cut down near Matamata and recreated on site, fibreglass and artificial silk leaves made in Taiwan individually wired on. Sam told us it is reputed to have cost $7.5m to create.

• On the other hand, all the fruit and veg currently growing in Hobbiton is seasonal with eight gardeners tending to it. Gardeners have free rein with what they plant in hobbit gardens as long as they follow a colour code set for each garden, e.g. the Beekeeper’s cottage garden flowers must be purple, blue and yellow only.

• The lower down the hill you live in Hobbiton, the poorer you are. The higher up the hill you go, the more manicured the gardens become. Bilbo is one of the richest hobbits.

• There are 44 hobbit holes on set, but most are just façades. For the film the interiors were filmed off-site in special sets. There are two homes you can now go into, that were added for tours in 2023 - the homes of the Proudfoots and Twofoots – on Bagshot Row.

• All the Hobbit hole doors are different sizes to help with scaling in the filming. Called ‘forced perspective’ a smaller door (60% scale) would be used to film tall Gandalf, whereas smaller hobbits hung around doors that were 90% scale. The interior holes that we went into were built to 80% scale.

• 2500 people auditioned to be a hobbit. To be cast as a hobbit, you had to be five-foot-two and ‘round of face’. Catering was made available for up to 400 cast and crew and visitors per day.

• At the end of filming LOTR the set was all but dismantled. In the film, Samwise Gangee has a vision of the Green Dragon pub being burnt down by a flying dragon - the pub was actually burnt down for these 2-seconds of film.

• With the success of LOTR films, tourists came to see Hobbiton, even though it had been dismantled. With the filming of The Hobbit it was decided to make Hobbiton again, but this time out of permanent materials. Quite a big undertaking as the stone steps leading up to Bag End were the only original thing left from the first films. Whilst we were there there was maintenance work going on: the same guys refurbishing Hobbiton were those that built the original set.

• Hobbiton received 500,000 visitors last year, and each year it grows in popularity. They limit tours to 40 people with ten minute gaps between. Peter Jackson receives a % of profits for his investment in the building of Hobbiton.Leggi altro