These are the pictures from Brill
Windmill and the miniature landscape
around it which is said to have inspired Tolkien about the Shire
and
Sandyman's mill, but according to Tolkien it wasn't that *he
didn't like the miller and his name was not Sandyman* ..
But isn't it amazing when you look at Peter Jackson's recreation
of
the Shire and these pictures :D?
They are landscape pictures, not miniature models. But
when you look at that whole area it is not bigger than half a
football
pitch maybe, perhaps three quarter, where you find all those
valleys
and rolliing hills. When you walk through it (which we didn't - it
was
a bit too windy and starting to rain), the *hills* are maybe
kneehigh
and the *valleys* reach just above the ankles. Whether the
whole
thing is just a caprice of nature or man-made i do not know - but
either way, it is fairly impressive :).
So it is more a *Mini-Shire" as I have labelled it on my
photobucket
page.
The windmill is a bit separate on an elevated position, so it is
a "real* one which was used industrially .. the path you see is
the
one leading from the car park. The "Mini Shire* is just beside and
around it.
*
[Note by Varda: Brill is a village in Buckinghamshire, England,
near the border with Oxfordshire.
According to the
article
on Brill in Wikipedia:
"The name and various other features of Brill were used by J. R.
R. Tolkien as the basis for the village of Bree in The Lord of the
Rings.[18][19][20]
He also used other nearby places in Oxfordshire as part of the
Shire, sometimes using the same names, such as Buckland." ]
Arien is in Scotland.