The Lord of the Rings TV series could be coming to a town near you, with the UK announced as the filming location for the next season.
So far untitled, the show is set thousands of years before the events detailed in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit franchises.
With the first season of the show filmed in New Zealand, the move of location has left fans wondering where exactly the remaining four series will be filmed.
Here are some of the potential locations:
Scotland
Scotland’s scenery is often compared to that of New Zealand, with similar rugged hills and beautiful loch landscapes.
With the first season of the LOTR series being filmed in New Zealand, Scotland could be a good option for continuity purposes.
However, a spokeswoman for the Scottish Government’s agency Screen Scotland was unable to confirm or deny whether the show would have some Scottish roots, saying: “We can’t, unfortunately, comment on discussions about specific productions until or unless we’re able to.”
Warwickshire
Warwickshire, where J.R.R. Tolkien grew up, has been documented as inspiration for “The Shire”, home to the hobbits in the books and films.
This was admitted by Tolkien himself, who said that The Shire was “more or less a Warwickshire village of about the period of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee” and was “inspired by a few cherished square miles of actual countryside at Sarehole”, near Birmingham.
Worcestershire
Tolkien’s love of Anglo-Saxon Mercia in the Midlands supposedly influenced his work, to the extent he made direct comparisons between the landcape and the areas in LOTR.
For example, he is said to have likened parts of the Malvern hills in Worcestershire with the White Mountains, a famous landmark of Middle Earth.
Oxfordshire
Having spent much of his adult life living in Oxford, where he was a lecturer, it is unsurprising that the landscape supposedly inspired much of his writing in LOTR, making it another possible location for filming.