"Beren House & Luthien House" Top 5 Page for this destination Bournemouth Off The Beaten Path Tip by ettiewyn

One major reason for me to travel to Bournemouth was that it has a strong Tolkien connection. J.R.R. Tolkien and his wife holidayed in Bournemouth for about twenty-years, before they finally bought a bungalow to have a permanent home here, after Tolkien had retired from his professor's chair in Oxford. Strictly speaking, the house was located in Poole and not in Bournemouth, but Tolkien himself always referred to it as Bournemouth as it is located just at the edges of Poole, and I don't want to build a separate Poole page just because of this one tip.

As I said, the Tolkiens had been enjoying holidays in Bournemouth for many years before they finally decided to move there for good in 1968. The circumstances were rather traumatic for Tolkien, though. Tolkien had fallen in his home in 76 Sandfield Road, Oxford and what happened afterwards was quite difficult for him, as he describes in a letter to his son Michael in October 1968:

My bedroom-study at 76 was full of papers and half written works - which I knew where to lay my hand. I ran downstairs on the afternoon of June 17 and fell. I was picked off the floor of the hall and transported to the Nuffield [Orthopaedic Centre] as I was and never went back again - never saw my room, or my house, again. In addition to the shock of the fall and the operation, this has had a queer effect. It is like reading a story and coming to a sudden break (where a chapter or two are mssing): complete change of scene. For a long time I felt that I was in a (bad) dream and should wake up perhaps and find myself back in my old room.

The house of the Tolkiens was located in 19 Lakeside Road, close to Alum Chine and the road leading straight to the beach. It was very interesting to walk down the road and to see how calm and green it is, and in such a beautiful location. I think it is easy to imagine that it must have been a huge change to live here, after having spent decades in the bustling world of Oxford University. It was a new life for the elderly couple, also because they had central heating for the first time in their lives and other new luxuries, although altogether they still enjoyed a simple lifestyle. The garage was converted into a study where Tolkien could work and write in piece, without being disturbed by numerous phone calls or admirers knocking at the door.

Tolkien sold the house and moved back to Oxford after the death of his wife in 1971. In 2008, a small scandal happened when it became known that the bungalow in 19 Lakeside Road was to be torn down. Many fans wanted to prevent it, but it was done. The local proprietor knew that it was the former house of J.R.R. Tolkien, and when he started to clear the house (which had only had one different owner in the meantime), he found an old postcard stuck behind the fireplace. It was written to Tolkien in July 1968 by author Lin Carter and the find caused a sensation. The proprietor also found some stone statues of lions and griffins, and everything together was auctioned off for more than half a million pounds.

The bungalow was indeed torn down and I had only read that it was replaced by two family homes. I did not expect to find anything that reminded of Tolkien when I walked down Lakeside Road, and just enjoyed seeing the location of the beautiful street. Can you imagine my surprise and joy when I found no 19 and discovered that the new houses bore the names Beren House and Luthien House?

Beren and Luthien are two of Tolkien's most important heroes, a couple loving each other so much that they defeat evil and death itself, as told in the Silmarillion. It is a wonderful story and one Tolkien loved very much. When his wife died, the name Luthien was written on her gravestone in Oxford under her name and dates. A few months after her death, he wrote to Michael:

[...]I met the Lúthien Tinuviel of my own personal 'romance' with her long dark hair, fair face and starry eyes, and beautiful voice. And in 1934 she was still with me, and her beautiful children. But now she has gone before Beren, leaving him indeed one-handed, but he has no power to move the inexorable Mandos, and there is no Dor Gyrth i chuinar, the Land of the Dead that Live, in this Fallen Kingdom of Arda, where the servants of Mordor are worshipped...

When Tolkien died and was buried in the same grave, the name Beren was written under his name and dates.
I think it is such a wonderful gesture to name the two new houses like this, as a remembrancer of this extraordinary and loving couple.

Sources:
Carpenter, Humphrey (ed.). The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 2000.
Langton, Andrew: Bournemouth's Founders and Famous Visitors. Brimscombe: The History Press 2010.
Scull, Christina, Wayne G. Hammond. The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide. Chronology. London: HarperCollins Publishers 2006.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/7495446.stm [retrieved on 27/05/2012]