Project Northmoor

[sule]

Project Northmoor

Project Northmoor - creating the first literary centre dedicated to Tolkien

www.projectnorthmoor.org

This group proposes to buy the house at 20 Northmoor Road where JRR Tolkien lived for seventeen years, and renovate it into a literary centre and shrine in honor of him. Thoughts?

 

[Pyan]

I'm in - Hobbit size, in the Red Book.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It surprises me that the house isn't already owned by the Tolkien estate.

 

[Astro Pen]

It surprises me that the house isn't already owned by the Tolkien estate.

Maybe it was a rental? He wasn't always famous

 

[Pyan]

No, he owned it. It was built for for Basil Blackwell, the owner of Blackwell’s Bookshop, and Tolkien bought the lease in 1930, and lived there until 1947, when he sold up, downsized, and moved to Headington. He left Headington in 1959, when he retired, and moved to Bournemouth.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

It is hard to believe he could afford such a large house at that time. And I have seen at least one picture of Edith as a wife and mother where she had lost her early beauty and looked thin and worn out . That house would have been a lot of work without a crowd of servants, which I am sure they could not have afforded. Servants were no longer so cheap ... maybe they had a man to do the outdoor work and a woman to "oblige" Mrs. Tolkien a few hours a week, but more than that seems unlikely.

I've lately been reading mystery novels written during that period and those who owned large houses without correspondingly large incomes were in a tough bind, and it was quite hard on the women of the family especially. No "mod cons" and hardly any servants and yet a need to keep up the old standards.

In short, I wonder if it was a happy place for them to live.

 

[Pyan]

The house was built in 1924 for the very well-off owner of the biggest bookshop (the go-to place for thousands of University students) in Oxford. It's probable that the house would have all the latest innovations built in: certainly a gas cooker, and probably gas heating. Oxford had full electricity coverage by 1924, and a large house built for a rich man would certainly have it installed. I don't think you could really classify it as having no 'mod cons'.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

But the best mod cons seem to have been reserved for swanky apartments or town houses for the rich in London. A house on some land in Oxford ... I don't quite see it.

 

[paranoid marvin]

It still surprises me though that today with the vast fortunes of the Tolkien estate that the house where it all happened hasn't been turned into a shrine/museum to the man who created it. It may not be quite as popular a tourist attraction as Hill Top or Dove Cottage in the Lake District, but it would still have significant interest. And I think that it's important that we preserve not only the written word but also the places that helped inspire the authors; once they're gone, they're gone forever.

 

[Extollager]

I appreciate the work of Robert Blackham and others to reproduce photos of places known to Tolkien as they were then.

 

[Extollager]

Update:

March 22, 2021 — Project Northmoor