Woodhall in the Woody End: A Special, Dreamy Shire Landscape
- Miriam Ellis
- Mar 2
- 3 min read
Do you ever look at place names on J.R.R. Tolkien's beautiful maps and wish you could just stand in them for a minute and see the lay of the land and experience the feeling of being there? Woodhall is just such a spot for me, and I hoped that in painting this landscape, I could share a view with others to help us better picture the place.
In my forthcoming book, A Shire Walking-Party, I'll hope to further explore with you the topic of hobbit architectural variations, and here you see the mix of both smials and homes that resulted from the locals running short of delving sites. You can see homes using both stone (not limed as in cheery Hobbiton) and the abundant available timber, with turf roofs so that the dwellings almost disappear into the landscape but for the lights that have already been lit on the shadow side of the wooded hills. In the eaves of the Woody End, the village of Woodhall never fails to kindle my imagination, as it is such a different setting than many of the other where hobbits dwell.
I think it would take a special kind of Little Folk to choose to dwell in a place where elves are known to tarry. The meeting in "Three Is Company" in The Fellowship of the Ring with Gildor Inglorion and his folk has indelibly enchanted this location for me, and I love the glimpse we get of the distant twinkling lights of Woodhall during this encounter. You can look at the landscape, above, and choose which hill you think the elves and hobbits looked out from over the village. If I could visit the Shire, the Woody End is one of the first places I would go in hopes that, somehow, some sense of the elves might still be there. Remember how Eregion still bore the memory of its former inhabitants? I think the Woody End could be like that if it any remnant of it still stands somewhere in Middle-earth. Perhaps the trees would whisper a recollection.
It's also the home of the thinking fox. I've been watching a lovely new program called Get Birding with Sean Bean which has emphasized for me, once again, that England would be so much improved if it recaptured some of its lost wildness. Apparently, the island is now down to just 2.5% of its ancient woodland coverage, decimating biodiversity, according to the Woodland Trust. I am hopeful that the immense love so many English folk feel for their land might result in true restoration of their woodlands so that the birds, foxes, badgers, beavers, squirrels, and so many other beautiful animals (and people!) might recover. Who would not want to sleep in peace under a great tree in company with such creatures?
The edge of the Woody End also sets the scene for one of the most pivotal conversations in The Lord of the Rings. It's there that Sam reveals to Frodo his utter determination to see the journey to its end. Of course, it is the night with the elves that seems to have gifted Sam with such clarity, causing Frodo to notice that a curious change has come over his humble gardener. But, here in the morning light beneath the beautiful fall beeches, it occurs to me that the forest, itself, may symbolize a space in which transformation occurs so often in fairy-stories. Forests are remarkable places, both for the weavers of yarns, and for so many of us who walk in their lively shade in the Primary World.
Given all these facts about the Woody End, I do believe that the hobbits who chose Woodhall as their home might well have been those with lots of Fallohide ancestry. This family group of the pre-migratory hobbits loved both trees and elves and I think they would have been quite comfortable in this special region of the Shire. I hope this post has nurtured your imagination surrounding this important place on the map, and that you'll enjoy this little video short to see close-ups of a setting where interesting woodsy hobbits once lived.
