Sarehole Mill

In 1896, Mabel Tolkien took her two young sons to live in a rented house in Sarehole, Warwickshire, then in the countryside outside Birmingham city limits. Here an old brick mill stood, with a tall chimney. A stream ran under its great wheel. The mill, with its frightening miller's son, seemed to make a permanent impression on the young Tolkien's imagination. In Hobbiton, located on the Water, stood a mill which was torn down and replaced by a brick building which polluted both the air and water. Coincidence?