I absolutely loved being on the Lord of the Rings Movie Set. The tour guide gave us so much history of this area and the movie.
The underlying geology of the area is that of the Hinuera Formation, a group of alluvial silts, sands and gravels laid down in the last glacial period. Originally largely marshland, it was transformed in the 19th century by a large-scale drainage scheme and is now fertile agricultural land that is also a major racehorse breeding area.
The Alexander family moved to the 500-hectare (1,200-acre) property of rolling grassland where the set is located in 1978. Since then it has been a livestock ranch with 13,000 sheep that love to stand in the middle of the road.
Refreshments are available at "The Shires Rest Café" prior to the tour. Breakfast and indeed "Second Breakfast" is available.
When Peter Jackson began to look for suitable locations for The Lord of the Rings film series, he first saw the Alexander Farm during an aerial search and concluded that the area was "like a slice of ancient England". Set Decorator Alan Lee commented that the location's hills "looked as though Hobbits had already begun excavations"
After suitable negotiations with the owners, work commenced in transforming part of the farm into sets for Hobbiton and other parts of J. R. R. Tolkien's Shire in March 1999. The New Zealand Army brought in heavy equipment to make about one mile of road into the site from the nearest local road and initial ground works. Further work included building the facades for 37 hobbit holes and associated gardens and hedges, a mill and double arch bridge, and erecting a 29 ton oak above Bag End that had been growing near Matamata and which was cut down and recreated on site complete with artificial leaves. Thatch on the pub and mill roofs was made from rushes growing on the farm.
The original set was not built to last, the hobbit hole facades having been constructed from untreated timber, ply and polystyrene and partially torn down after filming. In 2010, the set was rebuilt in a more permanent fashion for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, filming for which began in 2011.
Guided tours of the 14 acres movie set site commenced in 2002. Highlights of the tour include Bagshot Row, the Party Tree, and Bilbo's Bag End home. There are now 44 hobbit holes on view although it is only possible to enter a few of them, all of which have small, unfinished, earth-walled interiors. The interior of Bag End was shot in a studio in Wellington.
The hobbit holes on site have been designed and built to one of three different scales. In addition to the smallest ones built to the correct size as hobbits are smaller than humans, some are built to a larger scale to make the hobbit actors appear smaller, and some have been constructed in a "dwarf" scale for scenes containing dwarves. Apart from a few exceptions, the color of the front door indicates the scale, for example hobbit holes with a blue door are built to the correct scale for humans.
In 2012 the "Green Dragon" inn is a replica of the Green Dragon that featured in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies. There is now also a store selling merchandise and souvenirs adjacent to the café.
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