Project Northmoor head talks turning J.R.R. Tolkien’s house into a literary center

Project Northmoor wants to turn J.R.R. Tolkien’s home into a literary center. Organizer Julia Golding tells us about the project’s aims, its critics, and its progress.

While he was writing The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien lived at 20 Northmoor Road in Oxford, England. This historic house has changed hands several times since then. Now, Project Northmoor is raising funds to try and buy the house and turn it into a literary center dedicated to promoting creative writing, illustrating and more.

With celebrity backers like Sir Ian McKellan and Martin Freeman, the project quickly gained attention. In an exclusive interview, Project Northmoor head Julia Golding told us about plans for the house, explained the project’s ultimate goal, and more.

Winter Is Coming: Where did the idea for Project Northmoor come from? 

Julia Golding: “Well, I’m a resident of Oxford, and a writer as well. So of course I have the literary spots in my hometown on my radar, of which Tolkien’s house has always been right up there. It’s been in private hands, since it was built in 1924. It was sold to Tolkien in 1930, and he bought it from Bazel Blackwell, who’s famous in Oxford for the Blackwell’s book store. The best bookshop in the whole of the UK, is Blackwell’s.

“Tolkien lived there until 1947, and it was bought by an academic family, before it was sold to its current owners in 2004. Which was the same time it got its listing as a grade 2 property, due to Tolkien. It only changes hands once in a blue moon, so when it came on the market, I thought, ‘How could we turn this into a creative writing center?’ We wanted it to be accessible to Tolkien fans.

“I thought about it long and hard, it’s not really a business proposition, it’s a grade 2 property so it’d have to be a charity. All sorts of thoughts, I really explored the idea of what to do with this house. At the beginning of this November it occurred to me, that out in the world there are millions of Tolkien fans who would love to be able to come to Tolkien’s house, sit in the study where he wrote Lord of the Rings, look out on his garden, and see it used as something that honors his literary legacy.”

“And that led to the connective thought of crowd funding being the way to go. We’re all feeling the pinch at the end of this terrible year, so we thought a little bit from a lot of people is one way of doing this. In order to get this off the ground, everyone involved has volunteered, I started by ransacking my friends and family, but I made friends with an American contact Brian Boyd, who I’m working together with on a project based on one of my books, and he set up the US end of this. And we set up the UK end.

“Then I used my contacts to reach out to LOTR cast members, and that email I got in my inbox saying Ian McKellen would support this; I had champagne that evening. Really that’s where it came from, the house is large enough to host small groups. There are seven bedrooms, so you could accommodate up to 14 people. And the ideal size for a creative writing retreat is about 10 or 15, so its the right amount. And there’s a possibility of rearranging things to give us a bit more space. So it will work really well for that sort of venue to inspire the next generation of creatives, fantasy writers in particular is who I think we should be encouraging. That’s where Tolkien fits, he’s the father of the modern fantasy genre.”

WiC: What has been the initial reaction to the project?

JG: “It’s just been absolutely amazing since we launched. We’ve caught a little bit of flak from people who are suspicious of the project for whatever reason. But we’ve had overwhelming support from people, donating time or their skills, which is incredibly helpful. We’ve raised half a million pounds in the first three weeks with all of the media attention. Beginning a new phase though, we’ve begun a Kickstarter, which has done really well. That’s different since it’s a pledging, instead of donating. It’s great that we started out with the donating route so we can invest it in the project, but the Kickstarter has reached people who have pledged but want to see it complete. That has a few fun rewards, and that’s been really fun.

“We’re approaching big donors, and other ways of fundraising as well. We’re up against the clock, we’re working hard to hopefully purchase the house in the next couple months. I have a notion about the end of February, but hopefully we’ve gotten there before then. But it’s a funny world we’re all living in right now. I don’t think anyone can predict the fundraising landscape for the next couple months. It’s been largely enjoyable. The interest in the creative writing classes has been exciting, which can be run with or without the house online. That’s the first stage of activity, we’ll be able to start that this year.”

WiC: What makes the Northmoor estate special to fans of Tolkien?

JG: “Tolkien moved around a fair amount during his life, but this is the house he spent the most concentrated amount of time, where he and Edith raised their four children. They originally lived next door, so they just moved one door over. This was where he wrote The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and where Tolkien spent the second World War. There are references in his letters and memoirs to this house. It has exactly the same floor plan since Tolkien lived there, if you go into the house today it’s in the same layout Tolkien would have been familiar with.

“When Tolkien left the property, he lived in a couple other houses, but never for as long as this house. So if you’re looking for the Tolkien house, this is the one. This is the one that’s been listed, that has the blue plaque. Google Maps calls it the Tolkien house!”

WiC: If the project is successful, what sort of improvements are planned for the estate? 

JG: “Well it’s pretty exciting. We have a completed a survey (inspection), so the house is actually in pretty good condition for a property that age; we have basically a blank canvas. Two other families have lived in it since Tolkien, so we think there is a wonderful opportunity here to do some historical recreation. Downstairs, the plan is to return the decor to 1940, like you’re a student clutching your essay and about to go in to see your professor. I can imagine elements like music from that era, war reports on the radio, to give you that atmosphere. That would be a really fun project, the furniture all that, to recreate that era.

“Upstairs, where the guests would be staying, would be really spartan for that era. So what we thought was to give each bedroom a flavor, what I’m imaging would be something like a Hobbit bedroom room, an Elven bedroom, another a dwarf bedroom. One of the bedrooms could be a Sauron or Saruman inspired room, more Gothic. I imagine that would end up being the most popular room. But have real fun with the visual world of Tolkien that we got used to through Peter Jackson’s films. You would have a very distinct feel about where you were staying.

“Tolkien’s garden is just a gift. It’s a very large urban garden, it has mature shrubs and trees around the edges, but the center is open. Tolkien himself was a really keen gardener, that’s where you get Samwise from, so it would be wonderful garden areas out there, and arbors. If you’re looking out on it, it would look like Tolkien would have seen with a few elements of his imagination seeping out there. You could see the Lothlórien architecture in the reading arbors, that sort of thing.

“It wouldn’t all happen in the first few months, but it would be a project to happen in that first year. Transform that house to somewhere all fans wanted to go. Everyone wants to go to New Zealand of course, but it would hopefully be up there on the list. Very authentic, since it would be Tolkien’s actual house.”

WiC: What exactly would the house serving as a creative writing retreat entail?

JG: “It would be a literary center. Other organizations do similar things, a literary center means you have courses running, but those are seasonal. There are parts of the year where you don’t have courses, and you run it so that people can stay there, run talks for groups, or just individuals who want to stay in Oxford, like a bed and breakfast. You want to make the house self sustaining, so you could subsidize the courses, we are a charity. It’s not a business to make money, the money goes back into the charity for scholarships.

“Subject to the pandemic of course, the idea is to do six courses in the first year aimed at creative writing. Flagship, five day writing courses. Three follow along courses lasting three days, in which you visit the locations in Oxford that originally inspired Middle-earth. The castles, the downs, places like that which are echoed in the books. Those would be open to people staying in the house or just the general public. And we want to move beyond just creative writing, into illustration and other forms of creative expression. That probably won’t be a year one activity, but there are loads of people into that, it won’t just be about creative writing, but with pandemic restrictions writing is where we’d start. We’d like to have 3D tours online, so you can get involved virtually.

“In addition to that, would like to open the house to people who just want to stay in Oxford and write. Not an organized program, but people who want to stay for a longer period of time as a sort of writer’s retreat. We’re talking to the Marquette library, which holds some of Tolkien’s archives to find out if his works could be lent to an Oxford university for review by Tolkien scholars.

“But not everyone would come to the house to stay. There would be talks you could come for, just visit the study and the garden. We’d also have special events and dinners, which would be for larger numbers of people. The overall idea is to make it as accessible as possible, but without making it a museum. We couldn’t get permission for that, and the idea was to keep it as a living house, but respectful of creativity, not to turn it into a destination for people touring the UK. That’s the vision behind it.”

WiC: How did the celebrity backers become involved, and how important is their involvement?

JG: “As an author myself, I asked. I went through their publicists and explained and they got it. It all happened incredibly quickly. We started the campaign in November, and the first person to come on board was actor Derek Jacobi, who I’d met before. He’s been in everything from Cinderella to The Crown. Derek is friendly with Ian McKellen, so that was a big get. Their contribution to this is to be our megaphone, they gave us that ability to grab public attention.

“They all did it brilliantly. The person who has been the best friend to this project you could hope for, has been the wonderful John Rhys-Davies. When I spoke to him, he just said, ‘If you want me to talk to the press about this, I’m really happy to do so.’ And in the early days of the campaign he was able to the the TV spots and that kind of thing. So much thanks to him. Ian McKellen is sticking with us through the whole campaign, any time we have something new to say it goes out on his social media, which is so kind.

“Martin Freeman as well. We had buttoned down our promo video, and as we were about to launch it, that morning I found an email saying Martin Freeman had sent over a video. So I had to unbutton our video, but fortunately the lines he was reading were the ones I had read, so it was easy to drop them in there. But it was great, because it reminded me of the beginning of The Hobbit where Bilbo joins the dwarf party a bit late. It had that wonderful, last minute Bilbo aspect to it.

“I think it also reassures people; as much as I’m known over here as an author, I’m not a household name. So me saying anything wasn’t going to go anywhere. So their involvement reassures people is genuine, and has a chance at succeed. They are doing things I cannot do on my own charm.

“It has nothing to do with us, all those people their careers have been enriched by Tolkien-related material. We’re pushing on open doors of goodwill out there. It’s been wonderful. You can get depressed about the world, but this really gave you a sense of good in the world.”

WiC: How do you address the concerns about the project’s ultimate goals?

JG: “As for it not being open to the public, it’s pretty straightforward; we live in world with zoning laws. It is not possible to make it into an open door museum. We talked to local city councilors over here, and the planning department, so we crafted the project that fits between the lines we are allowed. If you want to visit a museum, visit the Story Museum when you come to Oxford, it’s in the center of town, and it has features on all the city’s famous authors. This is something different, something that we can do with this property, which is on a residential street.

“In regards to the retreat focusing on Tolkien’s Christian faith, this is really frustrating for me. It’s a literary center, it’s not a religious center. That’s a different charitable category than what we applied for. But, we also appreciate that Tolkien himself was Roman Catholic, so if people are coming because that is there motivation, that’s great and it should be celebrated. We do not discriminate on the basis of faith, no faith, gender, race. We don’t want to do that.

“We are doing this to make it a welcoming place for people of all backgrounds. I think Tolkien appeals to people who love his faith, Tolkien himself talked about Lord of the Rings being a Catholic work. If that’s what appeals to people great, but I think the values are human ones, that appeal to people of all faiths, and none.

“The reason these attacks came up, is that a lot of us who are involved are Christians. Maybe just because of me, I am a Christian, Church of England. So when I starting the project, initially a lot of the people I asked were friends, so they were people I knew through my networks. To be told your identity, privately as a citizen, that you therefore had ulterior motives, is very discriminatory. We have explicitly stated this is a literary center. It was an ad hominem attack against me, of what they thought they knew about me.

“The problem about it was, once you start having to defend yourself against something that wasn’t even a part of the project, it becomes the thing people want to talk about. I want to talk about the courses, and how we want to honor Tolkien, the wonderful richness of Middle-earth. To be creative and inspiring. I don’t want to hide the fact that I have faith, but if you don’t have a faith, that really doesn’t matter. The people teaching the courses, I have no idea what their faiths are, I know them as fellow writers or editors, and I wouldn’t want to ask them their faith position, it’s not relevant to the project.

Hopefully, Ms. Golding’s answers have clarified the project’s aims for those who are skeptical. In the meantime, for more on the Project, including ways to donate, visit ProjectNorthmoor.org, ahead of the effort’s anticipated conclusion in February.

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