The ‘London mates’ of the Alfrick CC fixture secretary describe his village as ‘Hobbiton’.
Nestling on the edge of the Malvern Hills in Worcestershire, it consists of 120 houses, a community shop and the kind of pub where you might find a tractor in the car park. Everyone knows each other, everyone helps each other. Think 1950s England or the Vicar of Dibley but certainly ‘The Shire’.
That is where Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee began their quest to throw ‘the precious’ into Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. They outsmarted the Black Riders, Gollum’s trickery and even Saruman’s all-seein...