The Hobbit

Middle-earth is invented, so this map holds only the real places Tolkien drew on: the Birmingham water mill behind Bag End and Hobbiton, the West Midlands hills and river country of his boyhood, and, far off the map, the Swiss valley and high Alps that fed Rivendell and the Misty Mountains after his 1911 walking tour.

Bilbo Baggins

Sarehole Mill, Birmingham

Bag End

Bag End is Bilbo's snug hobbit-hole, the comfortable home he is reluctant to leave and spends the whole book aching to see again. Tolkien traced Hobbiton and its countryside to the mill and lanes he knew as a small boy at Sarehole, before Birmingham spread over the fields. The mill survives as a museum on the River Cole.

Chapter 1, 'An Unexpected Party'

inspired by This is a real place that inspired the invented setting, not a location in the book. Tolkien lived beside Sarehole Mill in Hall Green as a boy and named this rural corner as the model for Hobbiton and the world of Bag End.

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