A £4.5 million crowdfunding campaign is initiated to turn the Oxford house where JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of The Rings into a museum.
Novelist Julia Golding launched Project Northmoor, a charity initiative initiative aimed at raising £4.5m to buy the house and turn it into a literary centre before it is put on the market.
The project is supported by actors
Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman and Rhyes- Davies who respectively played the Gandalf, Bilbo Baggins and Gimli roles in Peter Jackson’s adaptations of Tolkien’s books.
Tolkien and his family lived in 20 Northmoor Road in Oxford for 17 years from 1930, when the writer was a professor of Anglo-Saxon at the university, and where he wrote The Hobbit, a bedtime novel for his children, followed by The Lord of the Rings.
The seven-bedroom house with a large garden, will be renovated to show what it would have been like when Tolkien lived there. Plans include running a series of retreats and cultural events in the building and online.
Golding has negotiated a three-month fundraising campaign with the current owner and hopes to raise £4.5m. The house would cost £4m, while remainder amount will be used on building regulations, startup costs and developing the literary programmers.
Further money raised would be used to establish a fund that will help low-incomed people to turn to the house for courses, build a hobbit house at the end of the garden, or a “Smaug’s lair” for pipe smokers.
If the project is not fully funded, organisers say money raised will be used to promote Tolkien’s works, including establishing courses and events on the author, in order to inspire future generations to write fantasies.
Source: The Guardian