The Shire and The Grey Havens

Many details of places mentioned in The Scouring of the Shire can be seen in Map 2, including South Lane and Farmer Cotton’s house, the Bywater inn and the avenue of trees which was cut down. Also Sandyman’s Mill on the Water and the Old Grange on the side of the Hill.

There is a slight problem here. It is clearly stated in the Scouring of the Shire; Bk 3, that Frogmorton was 22 miles from the Bridge and the Three Farthing Stone just under 14 miles west of Frogmorton and 4 miles east of Bywater. But both the Scouring of the Shire and the Prologue to Book 1 say that the Stone was 'as near the centre of the Shire as no matter', while the Shire is said in the Prologue to have stretched 50 leagues (150 miles) from Brandywine to Westmarch and nearly 50 leagues from north to south.

My reckoning also makes the Shire some 150 miles from east to west, but this being so, the Stone can only have been central in a north-south direction, unless the Hobbits’ 'No matter' was unusually elastic.

The last ride was leisurely –no doubt in view of Frodo’s health. (The Grey Havens; Bk 3.) It took them 7 days after they joined Bilbo and the Elves, passing south of the White Downs and the Far Downs, across the Tower Hills and so to Mithlond, the Grey Havens on the Firth of Lune.

The mountains in the south-west corner of the map were part of the Ered Luin (the Blue Mountains). These also stretched north, beyond the river Lune, and there the Dwarves, including Thorin Oakenshield, still lived and worked in the days of The Hobbit. Gimli, too, was probably born there.