Brandy Hall

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Brandy Hall
Smials
Brandy Hall by Matěj Čadil
"Brandy Hall" by Matěj Čadil
General Information
LocationBuckland
TypeSmials
DescriptionAncestral home of the Brandybuck Family

Brandy Hall was in the center of Buckland on the east bank of the River Brandywine near the Bucklebury Ferry.[1] It was a smial deeply-delved into Buck Hill and was the ancestral home of the Brandybuck Family.[2]

History[edit | edit source]

Gorhendad Oldbuck began the first excavations of Brandy Hall after T.A. 2340.[3]

The Brandybucks kept making additions to Brandy Hall until it occupied the whole of the hill, had three large front doors, many side-doors, and about a hundred windows. When the Brandybucks and numerous dependents outgrew Brandy Hall they burrowed and built all around Buck Hill.[4]

In 2980 Frodo Baggins' parents, Drogo Baggins[5] and Primula Brandybuck,[6] died in a boating accident. Frodo then lived in Brandy Hall until 2989 when his ninety-nine year old cousin, Bilbo Baggins, invited him to come live at Bag End.[7]

By the end of the first century of the Fourth Age Brandy Hall contained one of the largest collection of historical books and records, in particular many works dealing with Eriador and the history of Rohan. Some of the works composed or begun by Meriadoc Brandybuck and kept in the Brandy Hall library were Herblore of the Shire, the Reckoning of Years, and the short treatise Old Words and Names in the Shire.[8]

Etymology[edit | edit source]

See also: Brandagamba

From the Westron Brandybuck and the English hall.

Other versions of the legendarium[edit | edit source]

In the first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, the map A Part of the Shire showed the Buck Hill to be beyond the main Buckland road (that is: the road ran between Brandywine and the Hill) which was inconsistent to the narrative;[9] Tolkien himself had written concerning the map: "it is unfortunate that Brandy Hall clearly on the river-bank is placed so that the main road runs in front of it instead of behind".[10] The location was corrected on the map of the second edition (1966).[11]

References