Magical landscapes transposed into the cinematic version of Middle Earth, a fictional fantasy world where a war between good and evil is being waged on a grand scale in The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.
British author J. R. R. Tolkien thought up this setting for his novels and described it in detail.
But he himself spent most of his life in Oxford.
In his book, The Worlds of J. R. R. Tolkien, John Garth describes what places inspired the British fantasy author.
This is Merton College, Oxford, where Tolkien was professor of English language and literature from 1945.
This was when he was just nearing the end of writing The Lord of the Rings.
He was writing the last two books, including the battle scenes at Minas Tirith, which is a fantastic medieval city.
And if you're inside there, inside the quads, the quadrangles, it's very much like being inside a medieval city.
But Oxford wasn't the only source of inspiration for Minas Tirith, the capital of Gondor.
Literary works also played a role, such as the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.
