I really do live in The Shire. I live near Sarehole, Moseley in Birmingham England. This was the place where Tolkien lived as a child. He played in Moseley Bog (A small wood) and used it as his inspiration for the shire in later life. He lived in Wake Green Road which is easy for me to walk to but I don't know which house. Unfortunately it is all built up around it with housing nowadays (Brum is England's second largest city and boy can you tell) but if you wander round the back of Sarehole Mill (the water mill is still there in the middle of this suburb!!)and into the parkland you can still imagine you are in the shire (if it wasn't for the noise of the traffic). The two towers are here too. One of them is in the University but no one has ever told me what the other one is as I am not a native of these parts. Any information gratefully recieved.
In my native lands in the north there is a huge gothic house called 'Cragside' in a wooded valley on the edge of the moors which I always thought of as like Rivendell as a child.
Sorry for rambling as usual.
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Auriel
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