A home for Tolkien

The Article discusses why 'the campaign to save Tolkien’s home in Oxford deserves to succeed'.

There are, of course, many houses in Britain dedicated to the creative geniuses who once lived there. Shakespeare, Milton, Johnson, Hogarth, Sterne, Austen, Wordsworth, Coleridge, the Brontës, Dickens, Hardy and William Morris, to name only a few, have been honoured in this way. Even fewer are time capsules, preserved exactly as they were: among these are the Carlyle house in Chelsea and Henry Moore’s home at Much Hadham, the grounds of which are now an open-air sculpture museum.

The Tolkien house won’t be a time capsule, but it could be something no less valuable: a place where the uniquely Old English yet universally appealing fantasy world that he created can continue to inspire new work. The task of buying and converting 22 Northmoor Road is only the beginning. It will then need an endowment to pay for staff and ways to generate its own income. As the house is in a residential area, it is unlikely to get planning permission to be open to the public. But the campaign can draw on a deep reservoir of admiration for Tolkien the man and his books. Perhaps the University of Oxford, to which he devoted so much of his life, will see its way to assisting the Northmoor Project. This is a cause that deserves to succeed. (Daniel Johnson)

Here's the link to the campaign. We most certainly hope it's a success.

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