TOP 10 SUPERB LITERARY SETTINGS

Ellie Tennant explores the stunning landscapes that have inspired best-selling novels

- Ellie Tennant

1 The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings JRR Tolkien

Fantasy author JRR Tolkien's mythological Middle Earth takes inspiration from a number of places in Gloucestershire and the West Midlands.

Tolkien frequently visited the Forest of Dean and its temperate rainforest Puzzlewood, which is said to have influenced his creation of tangled, mossy forests such as Mirkwood. Tolkien's fictional ents – strange, gnarled, tree-like creatures who protect the ancient woodlands - might also have their roots here (puzzlewood.net).

The idyllic Shire, home of hobbit Bilbo Baggins, is reminiscent of the sleepy villages and gentle undulating hills around the verdant Vale of Evesham, where Tolkien visited his brother, Hilary, who had a pretty orchard of plum and pear trees. Today, an annual 55-mile, AA-signposted Blossom Trail blooms with colour in spring (valeandspa.co.uk/blossom).

Other nearby beauty spots appear in Tolkien's work. His illustration of the Doors of Durin - a hidden entrance to the mountain that harbours the dwarf city of Khazad-dûm - is almost identical to the north door of St Edward's Church in the Cotswold town of Stow-on-the-Wold, which has vast trees each side of it that have merged with the stone over centuries.

2 A Game of Thrones George RR Martin

"The Wall sprang from my visit to Hadrian's Wall in 1981," wrote George RR Martin, American author of A Game of Thrones (1996). This first novel in the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire became the basis for the hit HBO TV drama in 2011.

Martin's fictional wall is an ancient barrier of ice, stone and magic, hundreds of miles long, defended by the Night's Watch. It protects the Seven Kingdoms from the dangerous northern wilderness, and the undead Others and human Wildlings who live north of the wall.