Blue plaque set to mark Lord of Rings author’s link with Hull

The plaque recalls the author’s convalescence at Brooklands Officers’ Hospital, now the University of Hull’s Dennison Centre.

In 1917, Tolkien had two lengthy stays in Hull recuperating 
from trench fever which he had picked up in France in the Great War.

The link between Tolkien and the building was discovered by author Phil Mathison during his research on his book Tolkien in East Yorkshire.

The young, still unpublished, author spent 18 months in East Yorkshire, much of it on the crumbling Holderness coastline where soldiers spent hours watching for an invasion from the sea.

His visit to a wood full of hemlocks in the village of Roos in Holderness – possibly Dents Garth at the southern end of the village – with his wife Edith is well known.

He was so enchanted by the image of Edith dancing and singing there he used it as the “landscape” for the first meeting of the mythic lovers Berien and Luthien, a story retold in several Tolkien works.

Connections with Withernsea – his wife stayed at a house which is now the Lifeboat Café – and Hornsea, are less well known.

The author also spent time at Easington and Kilnsea towards the tip of the Holderness peninsula, where he found time to rework his story about a wandering mariner which was to become The Song of Eriol.

Attending Monday’s ceremony when the plaque will be unveiled at the centre’s entrance, will be the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Calie Pistorius, and ward councillor John Fareham.

Coun Fareham said: “I think in the year of Hull’s City of Culture bid it is important to remember that we had one of the colossi of English Literature staying here in Hull.

“It will be meaningful to a lot of people who grew up with his books and now with Peter Jackson’s excellent films it is coming alive to a whole new generation.”