The Bohemian Budgie: Maybe Middle Earth: The Tolkien Trail

Thursday, 30 November 2017

Maybe Middle Earth: The Tolkien Trail

“I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

I had a very pleasant walking holiday in November which involved a couple of nights glamping in the West Pennine Moors. The circular walk started and finished at a village called Hurst Green, and took in Stoneyhurst College (an independent school with large grounds full of historic interest). Much of the return walk was by the banks of the river Ribble, with extensive views over rolling countryside, woods and farmland.

Interesting morning clouds

Middle Earth? View from the glamp site, over Longridge Fell

Glamping facility located near Hurst Green

Tolkien Trail Walking Route. Starting in Hurst Green, to the left

(Image from Ordnanve Survey Locate: Tail PlannerApp)

Walk Details
Estimated Time	2h 30 min based on an average walking speed of 3mph
Total Distance	7 miles
Start/ Finish	Hurst Green Village (parking plentiful) Lattitude: 53.8371 Longitude: -2.4793
Difficulty	Generally good paths throughout. Some mud underfoot after rain. Mostly flat with some steep slopes.
Total Ascent	170m (558ft)
OS Grid Reference	SD 6855 3797 Explorer 287 (West Pennnine Moors)

The whole route of the walk is closely associated with South African-born John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892-1973) who was author of Lord of the Rings. Tolkien is known to have stayed in the area, visiting his eldest son, John, who was studying for the priesthood at the Jesuit seminary at St Mary’s Hall, now the prep school for Stonyhurst College. This had remained hidden until the discovery of a college visitors' book in which Tolkien's name appears many times between 1942-47. Another one of Tolkien's sons, Michael, also taught classics at Stonyhurst in the 1960s and '70s

Stoneyhurst College

St. Peter's Church Stoneyhurst 1

St. Peter's Church Stoneyhurst

There is little doubt the Ribble Valley was an inspiration to Tolkien in writing The Lord of the Rings. He is known to have been a keen lover of walking and woodland, and such suggestion abounds in the countryside around Stoneyhurst. Was Hurst Green (with its aptly named Shire Lane) inspiration for Hobbiton? Was the Shireburn Arms, where the walk begins, responsible for the River Shirebourne (or the Shireburn family who built Stonyhurst)?

River Shirebourne? A sunlit meander of the River Ribble at Moyser Wood

Stonyhurst College was founded in 1593 at St Omer in northern France to provide a Catholic education for English families fleeing Tudor religious repression. Following the French Revolution in 1794, the Jesuits moved to England and settled on the Stonyhurst estate.

The college has yet more literary connections: poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was a member of staff at Stonyhurst, and Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, attended the college as a boy. The setting for The Hound of the Baskervilles is thought to be Stonyhurst itself. Perhaps these writers found life in the shadow of Pendle Hill an impetus for their darker themes, with its lugubrious stare and foreboding tales of Lancashire Witches.