On my three week road trip around both the South Island and the North Island of New Zealand I plugged Matamata into the GPS and found my way to this beautiful farm in the countryside. 

When Peter Jackson began to look for suitable locations for The Lord of the Rings film series he first saw the Alexander Farm during an aerial search in 1998 and concluded that the area was “like a slice of ancient England”. Set Decorator Alan Lee commented that the location’s hills “looked as though Hobbits had already begun excavations”. Part of the site has a lake with a long arm that could double as a river.

After suitable negotiations with the owners, work commenced in transforming part of the farm into sets for Hobbiton and other parts of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Shire in March 1999. The New Zealand Army brought in heavy equipment to make 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) of road into the site from the nearest highway and initial ground works. Further work included building the facades for 37 hobbit holes and associated gardens and hedges, a mill and double arch bridge, and erecting a 26-tonne (29-ton) oak above Bag End that had been growing near Matamata and which was cut down and recreated on site complete with artificial leaves. Thatch on the pub and mill roofs was made from rushes growing on the farm. Generators were installed and water and sewerage also had to be considered. Catering was made available for up to 400 cast, crew and visitors per day.

I toured the set around lunchtime with ‘hard’ midday sunshine making it difficult create good lighting for this shot. With no tripod and limited time and space to work with I opted for a hand held three shot bracketed image which I then created this HDR image from. I feel the image gives a strong sense of how magical a place it is and you just expect to see hobbits going about their daily lives. You can see a hobbit hole close up here in my gallery.