Return to Hobbiton
“The travellers trotted on, and as the sun began to sink towards the White Downs far away on the western horizon they came to Bywater by its wide pool; and there they had their first really painful shock. This was Frodo and Sam's own country, and they found out now that they cared about it more than any other place in the world. Many of the houses that they had known were missing. Some seemed to have been burned down. The pleasant row of old hobbit-holes in the bank on the north side of the Pool were deserted, and their little gardens that used to run down bright to the water's edge were rank with weeds. Worse, there was a whole line of the ugly new houses all along the Pool Side, where the Hobbiton Road ran close to the bank. An avenue of trees had stood there. They were all gone. And looking with dismay up the road towards Bag End they saw a tall chimney of brick in the distance. It was pouring out black smoke into the evening air.”
- From The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)
Tolkien spent his childhood in Hall Green which at the time saw a sweet little village, but it was swallowed up by what at the time was the fastest growing city on earth, Birmingham; which, let's face it, is not renowned for its aesthetic architecture. You can see where he got lots of his ideas from. The destruction of trees is a recurring image in LOTR, less so in the film, but it's still there. For Tolkien it was the essence of barbarism.