About | Hobbiton Movie Set Tour
“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
Fall in love with Hobbiton, a movie set and filming location for The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Be taken on a journey through the green and lush hillside, passing the most adorable hobbit holes along the way. Each has its own little personality, charm and intricate details. Some have even left their washing out to dry. It actually feels like you’re stepping into a tiny little village.
Make your way to The Shire’s Rest to start your tour. Here you can browse the gift shop and grab your tickets. There are lots of Lord of the Rings souvenirs. As you wait for the tour bus to arrive, take a seat at one of the picnic tables and feast your eyes on the rolling hills you’re about to explore. If you’ve got lots of time, head on up to The Shire’s Rest Cafe to grab a coffee or a meal.
When the bus arrives, get in line and be ready to be whisked away to a magical land. The buses are nice and comfy and the tours guides are the best, most friendly bunch you’ll come across. They know everything about Lord of the Rings so while you’re on your tour make sure you start up a conversation to rack their minds.
The bus ride is short and sweet, the location is just across the road but you’ll slowly wind your way down to it as the tour guide welcomes you and briefs you on what is to come. They’ll also share a short behind the scenes movie clip with you to make sure you’re excited and ready when you step back out of the bus and onto hobbit land.
Explore the hobbit gardens, walk past 44 hobbit holes and grab a photo to show your family and friends back home. The permanent set is made out of wood, concrete and bricks. Peter Jackson wanted the place to look like it had all been here for a while so everything was artificially aged and weathered. Stop and have a look at the fences and gates with lichen and moss growing on them – this was all fake and put on by hand. Imagine how much time all of this would have taken. There were over 70 set builders to complete the movie set.
The most popular hobbit-hole, sitting right at the top of the hill, is Bag End which is Bilbo Baggins house. The large oak tree which sits on top, although you would never have thought, is actually fake. It was made specifically for the movie and made of fibreglass. Its leaves, made from silk and imported from Taiwan, were individually painted and attached by hand, one by one. The work done for this place just blows your mind. Oh, and whenever they fade in the sun, they all need to be repainted by hand.
As you’re guided through the hobbit village, you’ll make several stops to take it all in so don’t worry about being rushed – though it’s easy to get lost in its splendour. As you stop, the tour guide will point out spots that made it to the film and explain how all of the movie magic was made. They’ll give you lots of facts and share their knowledge and passion for the place so that you, too, can be amazed and wowed by it all.
See the mill, walk over the stone bridge and step inside the Green Dragon Inn where you can grab a complimentary beverage of your choice. They offer apple cider, ginger beer and two ales which are brewed at the Good George Brewery in Hamilton. When you’re finished, take a moment to take the place in, inside and out. Have a seat in the cosy armchairs and warm up by the fire, find yummy treats on display and see what’s going on in hobbit land by reading the signs on the bulletin board. You’ll even find some hobbit clothes hanging up that you can try on.
After coming for a visit to Hobbiton, you really get a feel of what it would be like to have lived in a hobbit village. It seems like such a happy place to be and it is such a pleasure to be able to go there and witness it for yourself. And you definitely don’t have to be a LOTR’s fan to appreciate what’s gone on here to make this happen.
How it all came to be
In 1998, Peter Jackson’s location scouts were searching for the ‘Party Tree’, a large tree by a lake for a filming spot. An aerial search led them to the Alexander family farm – a 1,250-acre working sheep farm in Matamata. Here, they found not only a huge tree by a nearby lake but also the rolling hills and lush green pastures that JRR Tolkien had described in his books. Overseeing the place by helicopter they saw no buildings and roads in sight and a huge similarity to Hobbiton – it was the perfect place for what would later become the fantasyland Middle-earth. They landed the helicopter to seek permission to use the land, but after knocking on the door, they found that the owner was too busy watching telly, and was told, “The rugby’s on – can you come back later?”
They did come back and in March 1999 they started a massive nine-month mission to bring Hobbiton to life. A large crew was needed and also the help from the New Zealand Army to create a little hobbit village with 39 temporary hobbit holes made using untreated timber, plywood and polystyrene foam.
Filming started in December later that year and went on for three months before it was completed and everything needed to come down again. Time to restore the land back to its natural state. They had taken almost everything down except for a few remaining hobbit holes but because of bad weather, they had to delay the heavy machinery so it stayed there for some time.
Word soon got out that this was the location of Hobbiton and neighbours and friends of the family all wanted to have a look at what was left. Soon tourists came swarming in and the Alexander family turned it into a business with tours starting in 2002.
Peter Jackson came back in 2010 to rebuild everything up for the filming of The Hobbit. This time though, the Alexander family wondered if it could be done in a more permanent way, so that others could enjoy it for years to come. Negotiations were made and the Hobbiton Movie Set Tour is now available for everyone to see.
Need to know
The Shire’s Rest Cafe opening hours: Open seven days a week, 9am – 3:30pm.
Do I need to book in advance? Yes, tours can book out fast especially over summer so you’ll want to secure your place early. You’ll especially want to do this for the Evening Banquet Tours – they only offer this four times??? a week!
Do I need to go on a tour? Can I just visit by myself? You can only visit Hobbiton on a guided tour. They pick you up from The Shire’s Rest and take you on their big tour bus down a drive across the road where the hobbit village lives.
What should I bring? In summer, bring sunscreen as you’ll be out in the sun a lot. And in winter, check the weather forecast and bring a raincoat and umbrella if necessary. And of course, your camera.
Because we’re going to be outdoors, will the tour still go ahead in wet weather? Yes, they have umbrellas available for you to use if it’s raining.
Pram friendly: you can bring your pram with you so long as it is fully collapsible so that it can fit in the luggage compartment on the bus. Paths are made of cobblestones and dirt and there are some stairs that you’ll need to go up so you’ll need another adult to help.
Where can I find more LOTR locations: Peter Jackson combed New Zealand for the best locations for his film and you’ll find plenty as you tour New Zealand. Mt Ruapehu turned into Mt Doom, the rolling hills of Matamata became home to the hobbits and Queenstown was included in scenes such as the Eregion Hills and the Pillars of Argonath.
How long is the Hobbiton tour? The tour takes 2 hours.
Tips
Prepare for all sorts of weather
Just because the forecast says it’s going to be great, it doesn’t mean it’s going to be. Prepare for all sorts of weather so that whatever the weather you can still enjoy your time at Hobbiton. Hobbiton does have umbrellas you can use at the start of the tour so if the weather looks sketchy, it might be handy to grab one so that you’re not left out in the rain. There’s nothing worse than grumbly kids because they’re standing in the rain and getting wet.
Take a moment to look for the finer details
Though the hobbit holes are just facades, stop outside their homes and find hints of who may have lived there. You’ll find all sorts of adorable little details sitting outside of their hobbit homes, from honeypots outside the beekeeper’s house, a sweet picnic lunch on the dock, the baker’s house with fresh bread, the cheese-maker selling cheese, mortar and pestles left lying around as well as brooms and gardening tools, a chessboard, an easel, washing left hung out to dry, and even the cute mailboxes. There’s a vegetable patch and orchard as well. Come in spring and find beautiful flowers blooming everywhere. What a happy place to live!
Prepare for the crowds
Did you know that the Hobbiton Movie Set is New Zealand’s third-largest tourist destination with more than 3,000 people visiting a day during their busiest time? Tours run every half-hour so even if you do wait for every single last person from your group to move on to get a photo without anyone in it, there’s still yet another group right behind you to contend with. It is busy and it is going to be hard to get those perfect photos but book the first or last tour of the day where you’ll be the first or last group at Hobbiton. The Evening Banquet Tours are a great choice and the best option for getting photos with a beautiful sunset. Then top it all off with a scrumptious hobbit inspired feast!
Get your camera ready
And make sure you have a full battery and enough storage. The worst thing would be for it to die on you right in the middle of your tour. If you’re anything like me, you’ll be happily snapping away the whole time. Have fun as you explore and take photos of hobbit holes, adorable little details and the Green Dragon Inn, the hobbits favourite place to grab a drink.
Nearby
Location
You don’t actually start your tour at the Hobbiton Movie Set, but across the road, at The Shire’s Rest where you can relax at The Shire’s Rest Cafe and browse the gift shop. Grab your tickets, then have a wander around, everything is immaculate, it’s a really well-maintained space and don’t forget to get some pictures to make everyone jealous at home!
Turn down Buckland Road, it’ll be on your left, there’ll be signs before you arrive letting you know that you’re getting close. And there’s lots of parking, too!
Photos
The weather was pretty grey when we came – but it was one of those days where you don’t really know what the weather is actually doing. Just hours before, we were hanging out at Poripori Waterhole with beautiful blue skies. But that’s New Zealand weather for you, you just never know what it’s going to do.
We grabbed our tickets from the gift shop and had a little browse but it wasn’t long before the Hobbiton Movie Set Tour bus had come and people were lining up to get on.
The bus was nice and comfortable, with air-con above us and a small tv in the front of the bus. The tour guide welcomed us as he drove the bus slowly down to the Hobbiton Movie Set, telling us a bit about the area and the filming that went on. A short film was shown on the TV. It was a nice welcome to the tour.
The big tour bus parked up and we all jumped out, pretty ecstatic that we were there! The weather was starting to look a little dreary so we grabbed one of the umbrellas that they were offering and then gathered together before we proceeded in. The tour guide told us that we’d walk around slowly and that there’d be lots of time for photos along the way.
I loved all of the little details! It was quite big, we walked and we walked and it just seemed so never-ending. It felt like we were taken to this special place where the hobbits actually lived.
Frogs in the pond were apparently so loud that actors couldn’t even hear each other! Somebody ended up having to collect and relocate them to another pond on the farm.
Peter Jackson wanted the scene to look just right, he always put lots of time and thought into even the smallest of details. He wrote, “I knew Hobbiton needed to be warm, comfortable and feel lived in. By letting the weeds grow through the cracks and establishing hedges and little gardens a year before filming, we ended up with an incredibly real place, not just a film set”. A person was even employed for a couple of weeks with the sole job of walking between the clotheslines to make the track look well worn.
Even though the Alexander Farm had around 13,500 sheep, Peter Jackson didn’t think they had the look he was going for so none of them made the film. Suffolk sheep, with their dark faces and legs made the film instead.
As you walk around Hobbiton, you’ll notice that the hobbit holes are two different sizes. Some are built at a 90 per cent scale and others at 60 per cent. This is so that the smaller holes make Gandalf look larger than he really is, and bigger holes make hobbits look smaller.
There’s only one hobbit hole that tourists can actually crack open the big round door and take a step inside. You’ll come across it at 40 Bagshot Row, it’s the hobbit hole just before Bag End.
Do you remember the scene where Gandalf accidentally bangs his head on the doorway while entering Bilbo’s house? This wasn’t actually scripted, but because actor Ian McKellen went along with it so professionally, it was put in the film. There’s also another scene here when Bilbo and Gandalf are sitting, facing the sunset. Because Bag End faces the east and actually catches the sunrise, they had to play the sunrise backwards – it took them seven sunrises to get it just right.
Most of the hobbit holes are just facades, with nothing inside. One of the holes that has an inside is Bag End, though it’s only a segment of a wall. This is so it gives the illusion of an inside when the door is opened while being filmed inside. The indoor shots were filmed at a studio, Weka Workshop, in Wellington. Tourists can open the round door and take photos in one of the hobbit holes and it isn’t Bag End but its neighbour.
Some hobbits are richer than others with the lower down you live, the poorer you are. Bilbo, living right at the top, is one of the richest hobbits.
The first book in The Lord of the Rings mentions children playing under plum trees. Peter Jackson thought that plum trees would look too big, so apple and pear trees were planted instead. Just before filming, all of the fruit were stripped and replaced with fake plums. After all of this work though, the scene never made it on the film.
Reaching the bottom of the hill is party field where there’s a huge pine tree, a great view of Green Dragon Inn and a number of wooden games and carnival props.
When it was time to film Bilbo’s birthday party, Peter Jackson wanted it to look authentic so let the actors drink as much as they wanted. What they didn’t know, was that the brew was only 1 per cent alcohol.
In the scene where Bilbo and Gandalf were sitting next to each other on the cart heading out of town, they weren’t actually sitting next to each other, but Bilbo had to sit behind him to look smaller in the shot. They still had to talk and turn their head as if the person was right next to them which proved trickier than what they thought.
The casting requirements of a hobbit were that you had to be five-foot-two and ’round of face’. Would you fit the description?
To bring Hobbiton to life and looking as beautiful as it is – actually, takes a large team. The movie set employs over 50 permanent staff. 5 gardeners are needed during winter and 7 – 8 over summer. On busy days, more than 180 people can be working in a single day!
Hobbiton was such a beautiful and happy place we were so glad to have visited.
