Tolkien wrote in the hotel

There is an article in Saturday's Daily Telegraph about a proposal for the National Trust to rent out Thomas Hardy's cottage in Dorset.

The Trust is concerned that it has a "responsibility to ensure its financial sustainability" and sees renting the cottage as a way of generating income. Presumably, they believe that many of the 15,000 people who visit the cottage from around the world would want to savour more of the atmosphere of building by staying there. A caption to a photograph of Hardy in the newspaper (which does not appear on the internet version) reads "Hardy: wrote in the cottage". I would like to suggest that a good way of summing up the attraction of staying in the Three Cups Hotel to potential visitors from around the world would be a "Tolkien wrote in the hotel". To this could be added that he enjoyed walking in the surrounding countryside and one could surmise that he appreciated the hospitality of the bar. Sadly, it would be best not to mention that he would probably have sat smoking his pipe in the lounge.

Note: Hardy's Cottage is at Higher Bockhampton, near Dorchester, which according to the AA Route Planner is 29 miles or 40 minutes drive from Lyme Regis. If you look at the National Trust's web site for details of Hardy's cottage, you will see that one of the Trust's nearby properties is Clouds Hill, the rural retreat of another famous Englishman and writer of the 20th century, T.E. Lawrence. Such a concentration of sites of cultural interest must indicate a market for visitors wanting to stay in accommodation with links to the history of the area.