The original Bag End

This ancient trackway leads to Bag End Farm. The farm was owned by the Tolkien's Aunt, Jane Neave, and in 1923 the young Tolkien, recovering from pneumonia, spent a good deal of time here.

Never underestimate the power of the Midlands countryside over an impressionable young mind... a couple of decades later, Bag End resurfaced in The Hobbit.

In Tolkien's words: "It [Bag End] was the local name for my aunt's farm in Worcestershire, which was at the end of a lane leading to it and no further..."

In England there are many hundreds of places, often deep in the countryside, that are called 'End'... they are often farms, and basically mean a place that leads to no other.