Tighfield

   The home of Sam Gamgee's ancestors.

   A village or town located somewhere in the Shire, though its exact location is not known. It is important to history as the home of many of Sam Gamgee's ancestors. His great-great-grandfather Wiseman Gamwich came to Tighfield about two hundred years before the War of the Ring, and Wiseman's son Hob Gammidge is recorded as a roper, one of a long line of Tighfield rope-makers. Hob's grandson was Hamfast Gamgee, Sam's father, who left Tighfield for Hobbiton, to start a new life as a gardener.

   Tighfield's name probably descends from an old word for a common field or pasture, and this fits well with the fact that there seem to have been fairs held there. Indeed, Hob's son Hobson, and in turn his son Andwise, were said to have often shown off their skills in a rope-walk there. The Shire-hobbits loved punning place-names, though, and the fact that Tighfield was associated with ropes and roping is perhaps more than coincidence.