Rumors have been floating around for months, and even an own goal scored by the LEGO Events team announcing a set-signing event in early April on the LEGO website a few weeks ago. Finally, we can show you 10354 The Shire.

This set brings us to Bag End and the location of Bilbo’s Party, as seen in the first part of the Fellowship of the Ring. With nine minifigures, including Bilbo, Frodo, Gandalf the Grey, Merry and Pippin, we also have a couple of new characters, including Rosie Cotton and the Proudfoots. The set has 2017 pieces and has a recommended retail price of $AUD399.99; €269.99 £229.99 $USD269.99. It will be released on April 2dn to LEGO Insiders, and available to all on April the 5th.

In this post, We’ll take a quick look at the set. Then I’ll bring some of my history with the Shire: from Discovering the Lord of the Rings, visiting the Hobbiton sets and building my version of Bag End a year or so before the official set was released in 2012. Then we’ll take a look at some photos of the set from the Fan Media Days in Billund last year, and hear some words from Kenyon Brady, one of the LEGO Designers who worked on the set. Finally, we will get to the official Press release, as well as details of the Gift with Purchase, available when the set will be released in early April.

Early Days

My first encounter with Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings came on a Sunday Morning in 1982 when the BBC radio production went to air on ABC FM. Featuring John le Measurier as Bilbo Baggins, Ian Holm as Frodo (he appeared as Bilbo in the Peter Jackson movies), and Bill Nighy as Sam Gamgee, the series ran for 26 weeks – quite the commitment for a 13-year-old. After the first episodes aired, I picked up the book for the first time and was hooked. I recorded it every week. Except for episode 7: The Ring Goes South. We had gone on a family holiday and were driving when it was broadcast, and the local radio reception was dreadful. It was years until I heard the episode in full. Purchase of the celebratory poster and soundtrack album followed. I may well have received the CDs of this adaptation from my wife the year we married (and episode 7 was finally heard in context).

Later days

Fast forward to 2001, and Peter Jackson’s adaptation presented a very similar story, from a certain point of view: opening with Bilbo’s Long Awaited Party. His 111th birthday coincided with Frodo’s 33rd, and on this occasion, the hobbit chose to vanish, with the aid of the One Ring (Are they really spoilers if its the first chapter of a book over 60 years old, or a the first act of a 23 year old movie?). These movies made for a convenient anniversary celebration for the Knoller-in-Chief and myself over the next few years.

On Location

In December 2010, in a family Trip to New Zealand saw us drop by the township of Matamata, just while the finishing touches were being applied to the scenery that would make up Hobbiton. It turns out that the sets were dismantled after The Lord of the Rings Trilogy wrapped up, but an enterprising local had started tours through the area… and then the set was redecorated for the Hobbit, and future tourism. Seeing the Hobbit Holes in the rolling green hills was quite delightful.

Making MOCs

This trip provided the final inspiration for my Brickvention 2011 MOC – it was well underway, but I remember placing Bricklink orders as we drove around New Zealand in the rental car, ensuring I had enough dwarfs, and an appropriately dressed Gandalf for the model: it might have been limited to 48×48 studs, quite blocky and I might have been short of dwarfs. I did opt for the ‘Book-correct’ version of a sand blue hat for Gandalf, however. It would be over a year before we had official notice of official sets based on the movies.

The Original Sets from The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit: 2012-2014

Bag End was a glaring omission from the first wave of the LEGO Lord of the Rings sets, with Gandalf’s arrival being the only set from that wave set during the early part of the story. It would appear that I forgot to open this set when I bought it 13 years ago – It seems to have appreciated from AUD$22.99 to around $AUD 160 today. This leaves me feeling that I am in a terrible bind as to whether to open it or not, as a reimagining of this set is included in the the Shire.

Bag End finally arrived in Official Brick Form™ at the end of the 2012 with the arrival of 79003 An Unexpected Party.

And Now – the set is revealed at Fan Media Days 2024:

And so, I was quite excited to see this set unveiled at the Fan Media Days last year. The set has three distinct parts. We start with Gandalf arriving with his fireworks at the very beginning of the story – virtually recreating 9469 Gandalf Arrives from 2012. Bag End itself provides the location for the drama and exposition in the first part of the story: Bilbo’s departure, Gandalf sharing the results of 17 years of researching about the ring to Frodo and more…

Finally, The sub-builds for Bilbo’s party brings us some new printed textiles and the arrival of the Proudfoots as minifigures (Proudfeet?). To say nothing of Merry, Pippin and Fireworks!

When the model was unveiled at RLFM days, designer Kenyon Brady spoke of how this model focused on the living area—unlike the 79003 An Unexpected Gathering, which focused on the kitchen in Bag End.

Let’s hear some more of Kenyon’s words from the unveilling:

”I’m six foot two, but I’m a hobbit at heart, so I am honored to get the opportunity to dive into the world of the Shire and to really bring this charming location to life. It was an amazing process. I had an awesome team to help me along the way, so I can’t take credit for all of it. It’s really a collaborative effort. [Earlier sketch models were contributed to by Antica Bracanov and Mike Psiaki]

“I worked with the graphics team, the textiles team, and the element design team, and I’m just super, super proud of how this turned out.

We’ve got, of course, Bag End here. That’s the hero. It’s got the iconic exterior, complete with a perfectly round door and a doorknob in the middle. That’s a microphone that has the the brass door knob there. We’ve got some fun, new element colors to fill out these details. Like we have these boomerangs here for the fence and Gandalf’s cart, of course. We have the alternate build of him so that he can sit in the cart, using the same sort of approach that we did in Rivendell. We just really wanted to pack this full of as many story moments as possible.

“The exterior was super important: We wanted to capture that lush, verdant world of the Shire, but it’s also just so much about the interior. We wanted to make sure it was nice and beautiful and cozy on the inside.

“We’ve got nine figures: a little bit shy of the 144 that were invited to the party. But, yeah, I’m super, super-thrilled that we’re able to cram so many into this moderate-sized set. We’ve got the main cast in the center here. You might be aware of Bilbo, Gandalf, Frodo, Mary, Pippin, Sam, and then some of the lesser known characters: such as Rosie Cotton and then the Proudfoots here that you see very briefly early on. Their costumes were a little drab, so we went with something a little more fun, like these two.

But yeah, we have a new element here. This skirt is a new mold. It’s a little bit of an interesting choice to do a new a new mold for a side character, but we really felt it helped to fill out this world and to contrast with Rosie’s skirt, which is a new color, and it’s a little more flowy and dancy because she’s seen dancing in the film.

And then we have a couple of fun functions. This one might be a little bit hard to see: but in the fireplace, we have an envelope with a graphic that shows it’s like burning and charred. And then if you turn the knob here, it reveals the Ring, the One Ring that you know the envelope burns away to reveal.

And then we have one other function here that maybe I’ll just steal the low here to show you, but you. When he’s giving his speech. We have a now you see him now you don’t super simple as the best mechanisms are, and I think it’s pretty effective to have a little bit of play in there.

“We also have the fireworks dragon that Merry and Pippin, that dastardly duo, set off. We have a secondary face print for these as well as two recolored hair pieces from Ninjago that makes it look like they’ve been blown up. So you can pose them next to the fireworks.

“One of my personal favorite touches is these beautiful textiles that our textile team came up with. I had a great time collaborating with them, and also the graphics team, who made this beautiful print to go on top of it. This sign, his birthday sign, is super true to the reference material. I think people are gonna have a blast. And I think the tent really adds some of that soft, warm charm by using cloth. It’s not,the more plasticky ones that we have. It can really ground you in that world.

“We have some prints in here. There are two different rugs that we wanted to highlight. One is like the entryway runner rug, and then we have the floral rug in the parlor. So yeah, really excited without how those came out. Can’t wait to see people use them in other MOCs as well.

“Bilbo has his seated legs as well, so he can be sitting at his desk writing his book. There’s even hooks here, so you can hang Gandalf’s Cape in the entryway, and you can remove this for a little bit better access to that playability with the door and some little details you might not notice.

“We’ve recolored the pen element to replicate unlit candles, with the wax sort of dripping down. It was just so much fun working with the team on this one.

I just feel really honored to be able to bring it to life. Yeah, I think, I think that just about sums it up. We have so many more story moments that you’ll discover when you open up the box and you get to play with it, and, yeah, be able to recreate those moments as you go along. ”

This model was very much a team effort, with initial sketch models by Antica Brackinoff and Mike Psiaki, before Kenyon took things forward. At fan media days, Graphic Designer Ashton Visser, and Kenyon Brady also presented us with the recoloured elements featured in the set: Unfortunately, the lighting has not been kind for colour matching, but we shall see these when my review comes along in the near future.

The Official Press Release

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Until Next Time,

Play Well!