Shire

The Northfarthing was the least populous part of the Shire. It was where most of the Shire's barley crop was grown, and the only farthing where heavy snow was frequent. The historic Battle of Greenfields was fought here.

* **Bindbole Wood** was one of the larger forests of the Shire. It was misspelled "Bindbale Wood" in the first Ballantine paperback edition, and the misspelling has been carried forward in many commentaries, including Foster's *Guide* and Fonstad's *Atlas*.
* The village of **Hardbottle** was the home of the Bracegirdle family, to whom Lobelia Sackville-Baggins belonged. Tolkien's unfinished index to *The Lord of the Ring* places Hardbottle in the Southfarthing  (and some maps, notably Karen Wynn Fonstad's *Atlas of Middle-earth*, have used this location). But in Tolkien's more extensive entry in his guide for translators, it is located explicitly in "the North Farthing" .
* **Long Cleeve** was the home of a sept of the Took clan, descendants of Bandobras "Bullroarer" Took known as the *North-Tooks*, who settled here after the Battle of Greenfields.

#### Westfarthing

The western part of the Shire. It extended from the Three-Farthing Stone west to the Far Downs, and included the White Downs.

* **Michel Delving on the White Downs** was the chief town of the Shire] Its name means simply "large excavation". The Mayor of Michel Delving, with a seven-year term, was the only elected official of the Shire. At the time of the War of the Ring, the Mayor was Will Whitfoot, the fattest hobbit in the Westfarthing. Michel Delving was the location of the Mathom-house, a museum for old items, including for a time Bilbo Baggins's *mithril* chain mail coat.
* **Little Delving** was a village to the north of Michel Delving. **Waymeet** (spelt "Waymoot" on the Shire map in the Prologue of *The Lord of the Rings*) grew up at the junction of the Great East Road with the branch of the South Road that came up from the Baranduin at Sarn Ford.
* **Tuckborough** was the centre of the Took homeland where most Tooks dwell. The Thain's extended family lived here in the **Great Smials**.  The second element*borough* is a homonym for *burrow*, which is a common Hobbit surname (compare: Shirriff Robin Smallburrow, and Messrs. Grubb, Grubb, and Burrowes). If *Tuckborough* is read as [Tookburrow], it becomes one of a class of Hobbitish ‘digging’ names, that includes *Michel Delving*, *The Lockholes*, *The Town Hole*.
* **Bywater** was a village situated on the East Road along a natural pool in the stream called The Water, a river running through the centre of the Shire. The *Green Dragon w*as a large inn located at the western end of the village, on the road to Hobbiton. The village was the site of the Battle of Bywater on 3 'November' T.A. 3019, the last battle in the War of the Ring.
* **Rushock Bog** was a swampy area along The Water, situated near the town of **Needlehole**.
* **Hobbiton** was a village on a stream locally known as The Water, a short distance west of Bywater. It had a mill, and there was a small inn called the *Ivy Bush* at the eastern end of the village, on the road to Bywater. The part of the village on the north of the river was known as **Hobbiton-across-the-Water**. This included The Hill, with Bag End and the neighbourhood of Underhill on the south, and Overhill on the north of the Hill. The Hill Road runs north from Bagshot Row and continues onward to Overhill.

On the north bank of the Water in Hobbiton was "The Mill", with a large water-wheel and a yard behind it. Sandyman the Miller owned the Mill and operated it with the help of his son Ted Sandyman. Lotho Sackville-Baggins had the Old Mill knocked down and the New Mill built in its place. The New Mill was an ugly red-brick building with a tall chimney. It was bigger than the Old Mill and full of wheels and strange contraptions to increase production. The New Mill straddled the Water and poured pollutants into the stream. It was operated by Men, and Ted Sandyman stayed on to help them. When Saruman came to the Shire in September 3019, the Mill was no longer used for grinding grain but for some industrial purpose; and loud noises, smoke, and filth issued from it. After Saruman was killed and the Chief's Men defeated at the Battle of Bywater, the New Mill was removed.
* **Bag End** was a luxurious tunnel, or *smial*, on the north-side of Hobbiton built in to the top of The Hill, circa T.A. 2885, by the wealthy and respected Bungo Baggins of the same town's namesake as a wedding gift to his bride Belladonna Took, a daughter and one of numerous children of the Shire's Thain, the great Gerontius Took. The hole, where many parties took place, had one level with many rooms and cellars. Only rooms on the west had windows, which opened out like portholes onto a grassy slope and distant meadows beyond. The main entrance to the tunnel sat on the end of a westwardly hilltop gated path at the end of an anonymous lane, off of The Hill Road. Bungo and Belladonna died relatively young by Hobbit standards (in 2926 and 2934 respectively), having given birth to Bilbo, (born 2890), who became in his adult bachelorhood its first heir. The tunnel's main entrance connected outdoors by an informal path both to a rear door and a second path partway down the garden's slope to a low rise in a hedgerow and further on into hedgerow country.

Other than the anonymous lane's entrance pathway, The Hill Road's lone offshoot was Bagshot Row, just to the south of Bag End, a lane built on top of fill from spoil literally tossed over the south side of The Hill while Bag End was being excavated. Bilbo later added a potato garden to the western slope when Hamfast "Gaffer" Gamgee, of Number 3, Bagshot Row became its full-time gardener in T.A. 2961. The next-door neighbour to Gamgee was Daddy Twofoot of Number 2, Bagshot Row. Gamgee himself often employed Holman Greenhand who lived in a hut south of The Water.
The *smial*, or hole, which Bilbo would often lock and leave for days at a time, leaving the keys with the Gamgees, was unexpectedly visited by Gandalf and a party of Dwarvesin T.A. 2941 causing Bilbo to suddenly disappear on the quest of Erebor, not returning until over a year later, where he was just in time to prevent its being auctioned.
In T.A. 2980 Bilbo eventually made an heir, his nephew from the Shire's east river country, master Frodo Baggins, an orphan by way of a highly controversial river boating/drowning accident. Born on the same date, Bilbo urged his junior nephew to reside with him so the two could celebrate their respective birthday parties together. The two lived at the smial until their joint birthday party of T.A. 3001 when Bilbo disappeared from the Shire, leaving Frodo the hole's master. A large disused field in front of Bagshot Row was leased by Bilbo to pitch tents to stage his disappearance.
Frodo himself left the Shire, in T.A. 3018, on his quest to destroy the One Ring. In preparation for this he sold the smial to his cousins, Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and her son Lotho. During the War of the Ring, the fallen wizard Saruman and his henchmen evicted Lobelia and murdered Lotho, taking Bag End for themselves. When Frodo returned to the Shire at the end of the War, the squatters were dealt with summarily, and Frodo resumed his residence. Samwise Gamgee soon moved in as well, together with his new wife Rose Cotton. However in only a few short years, Frodo left Middle-earth altogether, leaving Sam and his growing family as its masters for generations.
The author borrowed "Bag End" from the name of his aunt's farmhouse in the Worcestershire village of Dormston.[32] It was supposedly intended as a translation of the word*Labin-nec* in the fictional Westron language. This had much the same meaning, and a similar relationship, to *Labingi* (the Westron form of Baggins) as *Bag End* to *Baggins)*