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A quest to save JRR Tolkien’s home has begun, with Gandalf and Bilbo Baggins – or at least their earthly counterparts – joining in the attempt to turn the house where he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings into a museum.
Tolkien and his family moved to 20 Northmoor Road in Oxford in 1930, where they lived for 17 years while he was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at the university. It was there that he wrote The Hobbit, a novel that began as a bedtime story for his children, followed by The Lord of the Rings.
Author Julia Golding launched Project Northmoor, a charity that has started a crowdfunding campaign to raise £ 4.5 million ($ 6 million) to buy the house and turn it into a literary center before it goes on sale. market. The project was supported by actors including Ian McKellen, who plays Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s adaptations of Tolkien’s books, Martin Freeman, who plays Bilbo Baggins, and John Rhys-Davies, who plays Gimli.
The seven-bedroom house, which has a large garden, would be remodeled to show what it would have looked like when Tolkien lived there, with the intention of organizing a series of retreats and cultural events in the building and online. The house, which is listed as Grade II, does not belong to Tolkien’s estate – the author moved in 1947 – and the estate is not involved in the Northmoor Project.
“Incredibly, considering its importance, there is no center dedicated to Tolkien anywhere in the world,” Rhys-Davies said. “The vision is to transform Tolkien’s home into a literary center that will inspire new generations of writers, artists and filmmakers for many years to come.”
“Raising $ 6 million in three months is a huge challenge,” Golding said. “However, we just have to look at Frodo and Sam’s journey from Rivendell to Mount Doom, which took the same amount of time – and we’re inspired that we can do that too.”
“We cannot achieve this without the support of the worldwide Tolkien fan community, our association of funders,” McKellen said.
Golding has negotiated a three month fundraising window with the current owner and hopes to raise £ 4.5 million. The house would cost £ 4 million, with the rest to be used for building codes, start-up costs and development of literary programs.
Any additional money raised would be used to set up a fund to help low-income people come home for classes, build a hobbit house at the end of the garden, or a “Smaug’s den” for pipe smokers. Once established, the charity hopes to be financially self-sufficient.
“Our vision is to make Tolkien’s house not a barren museum, but a welcoming home of continuous creativity,” say the project organizers.
If the project is not fully funded, the organizers say the money raised will be used to meet the charity’s goals of promoting Tolkien’s works, including creating courses and events on the author to “inspire future generations of writers and artists in fantasy and other genres “.
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