Tolkien’s Shire is based on rural Worcestershire – and the Misty Mountains on the Swiss Alps – but the author’s time in this remote coastal area inspired chief elements in his tales, including Middle-earth’s greatest love story.
Is The Lord of the Rings based in Yorkshire?
Tolkien even directly copied some East Yorkshire place names into his work, with the village of Wetwang, for example, appearing in the Fellowship of the Ring. It’s now generally accepted that the landscape and coastline of East Yorkshire informed Tolkien’s later writing. It has been dubbed ‘The Tolkien Triangle’.
What place is the Shire based on?
Tolkien based the Shire’s landscapes, climate, flora, fauna, and placenames on rural England where he lived, first in Worcestershire as a boy, then in Oxfordshire.
What part of England is most like the Shire?
They lived in and around Birmingham, including at the village of Sarehole, which, like the fictional Hobbiton, had a corn-grinding mill by the water. In a newspaper interview Tolkien fondly recalled the area, saying the Shire was “inspired by a few cherished square miles of actual countryside at Sarehole”.
Why is the Shire called the Shire?
The word shire derives from the Old English sćir, from the Proto-Germanic *skizo (Old High German: sćira), denoting an ‘official charge’ a ‘district under a governor’, and a ‘care’.
Are Yorkshire people descended from Vikings?
Instead Yorkshire is dominated by the ancestry that has it roots across the North Sea. Groups we have called Germanic, Teutonic, Saxon, Alpine, Scandinavian and Norse Viking make up 52 per cent of Yorkshire’s Y chromosome, compared to 28 per cent across the whole of the rest of Britain.
Why is Yorkshire God’s county?
Yorkshire’s use of God’s Own Country is interchangeably used with God’s Own County. Since Yorkshire is England’s largest county and has a population double the size of Wales, and the same as Scotland with over 5 million people living here it seems fair to say that we have the right to claim ourselves as a country.
Is the Shire based on the Cotswolds?
Tolkien based The Shire on his home hamlet of Sarehole which, during his childhood, was in Worcestershire, the northern gateway to the Cotswolds. The 768 square miles of beautiful greenery spans multiple counties, including Wiltshire, Somerset, Worcestershire and Oxfordshire.
Is Mordor based on Birmingham?
The places in Birmingham that inspired Tolkien
He based the description of Mordor, home to the evil Lord Sauron, on the Black Country, a region of Birmingham which was heavily polluted by iron foundries, coal mines and steel mills due to the Industrial Revolution.
What is Rohan based on?
Tolkien grounded Rohan in elements inspired by Anglo-Saxon tradition, poetry, and linguistics, specifically in its Mercian dialect, in everything but its use of horses. Tolkien used Old English for the kingdom’s language and names, pretending that this was in translation of Rohirric.
What is the nicest county in England?
Telegraph Travel experts determined England’s greatest county by weighing up their offerings of natural wonders, luxuries, history, culture, and peace and quiet. According to their methodology, Devon came in first place, with 79 points separating it from second-placed Cumbria.
What is the nicest county to live in in England?
Ilkley in West Yorkshire has been crowned the best place to live in the UK, according to the 2022 Sunday Times guide.
What is the wealthiest region in England?
2018
| Region | Rank | GRP per capita (GBP) |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | — | 32,300 |
| Inner London – West | 1 | 188,900 |
| Inner London – East | 2 | 50,400 |
| Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire | 3 | 44,200 |
What does Shire mean in Yorkshire?
County of York
“Shire” is just the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the old French word “county”, so Yorkshire, for example, means “County of York”.
Why is Kent not a shire?
A shire is a traditional term for a division of land – it was first used from the beginning of the Anglo-Saxon settlement. They are usually named after the county town. It tends not to be found in counties which existed before this, for example Kent, Sussex and Essex, as each represents a former Anglo-Saxon kingdom.
Is the Shire based on Wales?
Writing at a time when industrialisation was transforming the British countryside, his nostalgic depiction of The Shire was inspired by rural Wales. It’s easy to see similarities between the landscapes in his books and the hills and meadows of the Black Mountains.
What part of England has the most Viking DNA?
In the Northeast Midlands, we see the highest average Scandinavian ethnicity of 11.1%. In fact, across Great Britain there is a clear pattern: the highest Scandinavian genetic ethnicity is found in northeast England, decreasing as you get further from that region.
What was Yorkshire originally called?
The name “Yorkshire”, first appeared in writing in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1065. It was originally composed of three sections called Thrydings, subsequently referred to as Ridings.
What are people from Yorkshire called?
Rather confusingly, someone born and bred in Yorkshire is also called a tyke.
What is the most common surname in Yorkshire?
Smith
It may be of no surprise to learn that more people are called Smith than any other surname in Yorkshire. There are a whopping 46,540 Smiths living in God’s Own County – that’s more than double the number of the next most popular surname, Taylor. But how many people share your name?
Why is Yorkshire split into 4 counties?
As Yorkshire was too large and unwieldy to have its own county council, separate county councils were created for the three ridings in 1889, but their area of control did not include the large towns, which became county boroughs, and included an increasingly large part of the population.