[eleanor_niphredil]

This does not follow anything that others have been saying, but...

When I was younger, I went with school to a place in the Lake District, an outdoor activity centre called Low bank ground. (For anyone who has been there, I was the one who started the ghost stories [img]smilies/evil.gif[/img] )
Anyway, when we where out one day, one of the leaders took us to what he called a secret place. It was a ledge high above everything, only accesable through a small coridor in the rock invisible to anyone who did not know it was there. As soon as I saw the view, I thought "This is the Shire". It was everything that the shire was meant to be. It was then that he told us that this is where Tolkien got his insperation. I was the only one who knew who Tolkien was, and the only one who believed him.

ever since this, I have heard several things to suggest that this could be true. I dont know about anyone else, but though the countryside surrounding Oxford is said to be the shire, to me, it always will exist in the Lakes, the view from that ledge.