The TOLKIEN TRAIL

The blush pink of Pendle Grit gives the countryside of Lancashire’s Ribble Valley a distinctive pastel hue. Many farmhouses, barns, out buildings, even entire villages, are made of this attractively coloured sandstone. And this distinctive natural resource is what separates northern Lancashire from Yorkshire with its granite terrain.

This valley’s long history is not without fascinating, and even gruesome, events but nowadays it is the link with J.R.R.Tolkien and his children’s book The Hobbit that is perhaps most enduring.

Tolkien was in digs in the Ribble Valley’s Hurst Green during the Second World War and stayed at Stonyhurst College, where his son had been evacuated to. Fans of may know that the Shire and Hobbiton are inspired by the pastoral beauty of this area. It is, while here.