The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring (Dir: Peter Jackson, 2001).

Hinuera Valley, Matamata, Waikato, New Zealand.

The diminutively proportioned rustic village of Hobbiton, home of Bilbo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Pippin Took, Merry and hobbit protagonist, Frodo, was built in New Zealand’s Hinuera Valley. Before it was chosen as a perfect spot to build The Shire, Middle Earth, the valley wasn’t much more than a few square kilometres of rolling green hills and pastures and the only pre-hobbit inhabitants were a large population if sheep (which rumour has it were allowed to graze on the set occasionally to keep the grass from getting too long.).

The village set (and especially Bilbo’s house, Bag End) with it’s rounded mound roofed houses and pastoral atmosphere was built a year before filming began to give the plants time to grow wild and to give the village a lived in look (the hobbits are supposed to have been living in Hobbiton for hundreds of years.). The impressive Hobbiton Bridge in these scenes was built by the New Zealand Army - out of polystyrene - the army were also booked to appear as orc extras, but disappointingly for them they had to pull out because of peace keeping commitments in East Timor.

You can only visit ‘The Shire’ now as part of a tour and the valley has gone back to it’s pre ‘Lord of the Rings’ use as a sheep paddock, so there’s not too much to look at unless you like lambs, but a lot of the plants put in for the film are still there (including the veggies.), so it‘s still worth a visit if you‘re following Frodo’s footsteps on a ’Lord of the Rings’ pilgrimage.

Rivendell was shot in the Kaitoke Regional Park, Wellington Region, and scenes at Lothlorien were shot at Fernside, Featherston, Wairarapa. For a while during and after the filming of the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy, announcements on flights coming into New Zealand welcomed visitors to Middle Earth.

Written by  Film Fan.

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