Fantasy fans will be able to stay in a Hobbit hole from home after a glamping firm was given the green light to build two underground holiday huts.
A corner of JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth will be recreated at Craighead Howff, near Braco, with work due to begin imminently.
The buildings will be dug into a sloping hillside, and constructed out of stone, like the home of the hobbit heroes of the Lord of the Rings saga.
However, holiday makers expecting all the mod-cons should look elsewhere as the buildings will be completely off-grid – with compost toilets and no electricity – though it will sport a top-of the range shower and comfortable furnishings.
The brains behind the idea are company director Ian Kerr and his wife Heather, who travelled New Zealand to conduct research at the Hobbiton film set near Matamata, on the North Island.
Heather admitted while neither of them have read the books or seen the films, they hoped that the site would prove a hit with fans.
She said: “We’ve seen snatches of the films but we’re not coming at it from the point of view of being Hobbit fans.
“When we went round Hobbiton we were talking to people about doing one and they were really interested – it capture’s peoples’ imaginations.
“I think we may well attract Hobbit fans, even though we are not specifically aiming at them.”
She added that it would be a fitting addition to their accommodation, which also includes a tree house.
“We have a little piece of ground at the end of our field that slopes and lends itself beautifully to Hobbit houses,” she said.
“In Scotland we believe there are a couple of other places that advertise that they have Hobbit houses to let but when you look at the structure of them they are wooden structures covered in earth. These will be built into the ground, as the ones in Hobbiton are.
“One of the things we would like to do is landscape the field, so it looks and feels like a little Hobbiton on its own.”
In the JRR Tolkien novels, Hobbit holes, or Smials, are known for their curved architecture – including round doors and windows.
Bilbo Baggins lived at Bag End in Hobbiton in the Shire both before and after his adventure to the Lonely Mountain and later left it to his nephew Frodo.
