The Hobbit is a pub in the Bevois Valley area of Southampton, England. Previously the Portswood Hotel, it was named after J. R. R. Tolkien's book The Hobbit in 1989. In 2012 the pub was involved in a legal dispute with Middle-earth Enterprises, a company owned by film producer Saul Zaentz, over its use of the name.
The Hobbit was originally known as the Portswood Hotel, and appears on 19th-century Ordnance Survey mapping. [1] It was renamed The Hobbit in 1989.[ citation needed ] Its name is inspired by the race of the same name featured in the works of J. R. R. Tolkien; other public houses with the same name exist or have existed in Weston-super-Mare, Monyash (now renamed [2] ) and Sowerby Bridge. [3] It won the Best Pub award at the Southern Daily Echo's "Best Bar None" event in 2007. [4] In December 2007 it was forced to close for two weeks as a result of an administrative error, during which time the pub was refurbished. [5]
In March 2003, The Hobbit was the last place murdered student Hannah Foster was seen alive. [6]
From 2010 til 2016 The Hobbit was the venue for Messtival, a local charity fundraising festival set up by Seasick Promotions & Management, which saw both national touring and local metal, hardcore, and pop punk bands play the downstairs venue. [7]
The Hobbit used to be known for cocktails and shots named after characters from Tolkien's novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings , but were issued a cease and desist letter from Middle-earth Enterprises in July 2020. [8] [9]
The pub is one of several in Southampton to be owned by Punch Taverns. [10] It was operated by landlord Steve Dockrell prior to his death in October 2008, [11] and was taken over by Stella Roberts in June 2009. [12] In the 2010s, the Hobbit's business began to suffer because of increasing costs, and that since the rise in tuition fees students have been spending much less at the venue. [13] In September 2019, Jack Andrews took over as landlord. [14]
On 13 March 2012, it was reported that Middle-earth Enterprises, a division of the Saul Zaentz Company (SZC) which oversees copyright issues surrounding Tolkien's works on Middle earth, had accused the pub of copyright infringement over the use of the Hobbit name. [8] The move was strongly criticised by actors Stephen Fry and Ian McKellen, both of whom were to appear in the Hobbit film series, [15] and by John Denham, Member of Parliament for Southampton Itchen. [16] A Facebook campaign to save The Hobbit was launched, and by 16 March 2012 had gained over 50,000 followers. On the same date SZC offered to resolve the dispute by allowing the pub to use the name for a licence fee. [15] Fry and McKellen later offered to contribute to the payment of the licence fee. [17]
Despite the apparent resolution, legal disputes surrounding the issue continued into August 2012, when an event was held at the pub to raise money to pay for its lawyers to continue negotiations. [18] In 2017, Roberts reported that the pub may have to close owing to increasing rates for commercial premises in Southampton. A crowdfunding appeal was set up to raise appropriate funds. [19]
In 2021, the pub underwent a £600,000 revamp which involved renovating most of the building. [20] [21]
Gandalf is a protagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. He is a wizard, one of the Istari order, and the leader of the Company of the Ring. Tolkien took the name "Gandalf" from the Old Norse "Catalogue of Dwarves" (Dvergatal) in the Völuspá.
Bilbo Baggins is the title character and protagonist of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, a supporting character in The Lord of the Rings, and the fictional narrator of many of Tolkien's Middle-earth writings. The Hobbit is selected by the wizard Gandalf to help Thorin and his party of Dwarves reclaim their ancestral home and treasure, which has been seized by the dragon Smaug. Bilbo sets out in The Hobbit timid and comfort-loving and, through his adventures, grows to become a useful and resourceful member of the quest.
The Lord of the Rings is a 1978 animated epic fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi from a screenplay by Chris Conkling and Peter S. Beagle. It is based on the novel of the same name by J. R. R. Tolkien, adapting from the volumes The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Set in Middle-earth, the film follows a group of fantasy races—Hobbits, Men, an Elf, a Dwarf and a wizard—who form a fellowship to destroy a magical ring made by the Dark Lord Sauron, the main antagonist.
The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy of epic fantasy adventure films directed by Peter Jackson, based on the novel The Lord of the Rings by English author J. R. R. Tolkien. The films are titled identically to the three volumes of the novel: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Two Towers (2002), and The Return of the King (2003). Produced and distributed by New Line Cinema with the co-production of WingNut Films, the films feature an ensemble cast including Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate Blanchett, John Rhys-Davies, Christopher Lee, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Andy Serkis, and Sean Bean.
"The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late" is J. R. R. Tolkien's imagined original song behind the nursery rhyme "Hey Diddle Diddle ", invented by back-formation. It was first published in Yorkshire Poetry magazine in 1923, and was reused in extended form in the 1954–55 The Lord of the Rings as a song sung by Frodo Baggins in the Prancing Pony inn. The extended version was republished in the 1962 collection The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.
Saul Zaentz was an American film producer and record company executive. He won the Academy Award for Best Picture three times and, in 1996, was awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award.
The Tolkien Estate is the legal body which manages the property of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien, including the copyright for most of his works. The individual copyrights have for the most part been assigned by the estate to subsidiary entities such as the J. R. R. Tolkien Discretionary Settlement and the Tolkien charitable trust. The various holdings of the Tolkien family, including the estate, have been organized under The Tolkien Company, the directors of which were Christopher Tolkien until August 2017 and his wife Baillie Tolkien, and J. R. R. Tolkien's grandson Michael George Tolkien. The executors of the estate were Christopher Tolkien, who was sole literary executor, and Cathleen Blackburn of Maier Blackburn, who has been the estate's solicitor for many years.
Middle-earth Enterprises, formerly known as Tolkien Enterprises, is a subdivision of the Embracer Freemode division of Embracer Group and formerly a trade name for a division of The Saul Zaentz Company. The subdivision owns the worldwide exclusive rights to certain elements of J. R. R. Tolkien's two most famous literary works: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. These elements include the names of characters contained within as well as the names of places, objects and events within them, and certain short phrases and sayings from the works.
The word hobbit was used by J. R. R. Tolkien as the name of a race of small humanoids in his fantasy fiction, the first published being The Hobbit in 1937. The Oxford English Dictionary, which added an entry for the word in the 1970s, credits Tolkien with coining it. Since then, however, it has been noted that there is prior evidence of the word, in a 19th-century list of legendary creatures. In 1971, Tolkien stated that he remembered making up the word himself, admitting that there was nothing but his "nude parole" to support the claim that he was uninfluenced by such similar words as hobgoblin. His choice may have been affected on his own admission by the title of Sinclair Lewis's 1922 novel Babbitt. The Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey has pointed out several parallels, including comparisons in The Hobbit, with the word "rabbit".
Southampton Test is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament by Satvir Kaur, a member of the Labour Party since 2024.
Portswood is a suburb and electoral ward of Southampton, England. The suburb lies to the north-north-east of the city centre and is bounded by Freemantle, Highfield, Swaythling, St. Denys and Bevois Valley.
Bitterne Park is a suburb and Electoral Ward of Southampton, England, on the Eastern bank of the River Itchen, built on sloping parkland which once formed part of Bitterne Manor.
St Denys is a partially riverside district of Southampton, England, centred 1.5 miles (2.4 km) north north-east of the city centre facing variously Bitterne Park and quay across the River Itchen estuary. The river is here spanned in the mid-east extreme of the district by Cobden Bridge, one of five within the city's broad boundaries, six including the railway bridge 100 m south. It is separated from the city centre by the districts sometimes known as Bevois Valley and New Town, in turn and to the south a riverside boardwalk allows pedestrian and bicycle access to the Mount Pleasant Industrial Estate and Northam.
The production of The Lord of the Rings film series posed enormous challenges, both logistical and creative. Under Peter Jackson's direction, these obstacles were overcome between 1997 and 2004. Many attempts to produce J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings had failed; the few that had reached the screen were animations. Since the publication of the source novels in the mid-1950s, many filmmakers and producers had considered a film but then set the project aside. The series as filmed by Jackson consists of three epic fantasy adventure films. They were produced by New Line Cinema, assisted by WingNut Films. The cinema versions appeared between 2001 and 2003, and the extended edition for home video in 2004. Development began in August 1997. The films were shot simultaneously. Their production was undertaken entirely in Jackson's native New Zealand. It spanned the 14-month period from October 1999 until December 2000, with pick-up shots filmed over a further 24 months, from 2001 to 2003.
The Hobbit is a trilogy of fantasy adventure films directed by Peter Jackson. The films are subtitled An Unexpected Journey (2012), The Desolation of Smaug (2013), and The Battle of the Five Armies (2014). The films are based on J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, but much of the trilogy was inspired by the appendices to his 1954–55 The Lord of the Rings, which expand on the story told in The Hobbit. Additional material and new characters were created specially for the films. The series is a prequel to Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
The Shire is a region of J. R. R. Tolkien's fictional Middle-earth, described in The Lord of the Rings and other works. The Shire is an inland area settled exclusively by hobbits, the Shire-folk, largely sheltered from the goings-on in the rest of Middle-earth. It is in the northwest of the continent, in the region of Eriador and the Kingdom of Arnor.
J. R. R. Tolkien's novels The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), set in his fictional world of Middle-earth, have been the subject of numerous motion picture adaptations across film and television.
Bilbo was a band from Edinburgh who used to be the support act for the Bay City Rollers, sharing the controversial Tam Paton as manager. Their 1978 single, She's Gonna Win, peaked at No. 42 on the UK Singles Chart.
The Old Farmhouse is a Grade II* listed pub which was originally a farmhouse, and dates back to at least 1560. It was rebuilt in 1611 and converted to its current usage in 1843. It is claimed to be the oldest building which is now a pub with a beer garden in Southampton, Hampshire. It is situated adjacent to the Mount Pleasant level crossing on the South West Main Line.
England and Englishness are represented in multiple forms within J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-earth writings; it appears, more or less thinly disguised, in the form of the Shire and the lands close to it; in kindly characters such as Treebeard, Faramir, and Théoden; in its industrialised state as Isengard and Mordor; and as Anglo-Saxon England in Rohan. Lastly, and most pervasively, Englishness appears in the words and behaviour of the hobbits, both in The Hobbit and in The Lord of the Rings.
Sometime later [the Bulls Head] was renamed the Hobbit Inn but thankfully today it has reverted to its original name
