Like many people, we have seen all the Lord of the Rings/Hobbit movies and thought “The Shire” seemed like a magical, quaint little oasis. We assumed it would be a couple of hobbit holes and not much else. We were pleasantly mistaken.

To get into Hobbiton, you have to take a tour and drive about ten minutes down a gated road to a secluded plot of land that you can’t see from the road. The land is owned by the Alexander family and consists of 1,250 acres of farmland. You arrive at a dirt parking lot that doesn’t look like much and is surrounded by tall shrubs. You follow the guide through some of the shrubs and then you are literally transported into the actual Shire.

Taylor said “oh my god it’s so cute” at least 20-30 times:

It was way more than just a few hobbit holes. There were 39! They also had tiny gardens, stone steps, bridges, and even mini laundry hanging up to dry (literally what is cuter than a laundry line of hobbit clothes!?). The grounds are maintained year round by a maintenance staff of around 70 people. Needless to say, the Shire was absolutely stunning.

The tour concluded by crossing the famous stone bridge over to the Green Dragon (aka the local hobbit pub) where we got complimentary goblets of beer. All in all the tour took about 2 hours and was well worth the money (about $55 US dollars per person). Plus, you can do more pricey tours that include a private guide or a banquet dinner at the Green Dragon.

Tristan contemplating how he can replicate The Shire at his parents house in Maine:

Bag End (aka Bilbo’s house):

We now plan to recreate Hobbiton when we get home. So if anyone wants to chip in with materials, assembly, etc please let us know. In the meantime, we will just be testing which layout we prefer:

Some interesting things we learned:

-To portray the height difference between the hobbits and wizards they used a technique called forced perspective. To help with this, they had a number of different sized hobbit hole heights depending on the scene they were filming and how large or small they wanted the actor to appear. Similar to stunt doubles, they also had height doubles, to further help with these shots. One of which included a 7 foot tall local police officer from New Zealand who played the height double for Gandalf. After filming wrapped and the movie was released, the officer was given a police name badge with the name “Gandalf.”

-There were about 300-400 crew/cast members at the filming location at a time including upwards of 100 hobbit extras (each individual hobbits’ makeup/prosthetics took the makeup artist 30 minutes!)

-The famous tree on the hill above Bag End is actually fake. The director hired a man from Taiwan to individually make and paint 200,000 leaves that would then be attached to the fake tree base one by one. TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND LEAVES. ONE BY ONE. I got carpal tunnel just hearing that.

In conclusion, if you are ever in New Zealand, got to Hobbiton. Be a tourist, buy a ticket, just do it.

Until next time!

Love T&T