The Shire revealed to be Gloucestershire

[Draken]

I was listening to a film review programme on Radio 4 that featured a dialogue coach. Among other things, he revealed that he had been involved with choosing the home accent of hobbits for the films. And the accent chosen was from Gloucestershire, on the grounds that it sounded rural without being too yokel-ish (I am paraphrasing somewhat).

Oh, and if you're not from the UK - the way you just said "Gloucestershire" in your head? It was almost certainly wrong!

[Alcuin]

Oh, and if you're not from the UK - the way you just said "Gloucestershire" in your head? It was almost certainly wrong!“glŏs'-tur-shur”? Same in New England: the pronunciation seems to have endured even as the local accents changed.

It’s interesting that they chose a Gloucestershire accent. I think consensus is that The Shire is based upon an idealized version of Tolkien’s childhood in Sarehole (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarehole), Worcestershire (consider your pronunciation of that, too; now part of greater Birmingham), before the death of his mother. Has the rural Worcestershire accent begun to die out?

Is there a videographic record of all the accents of Britain? Many of them are no doubt gone for good; I have heard (on this side of the Atlantic) that even Queen’s English, the famous upper crust English accent, is more difficult to find because of modern mass media. The Smithsonian began a project some decades ago to record all the American accents before they vanished.

[Draken]

Yep, well done!

There's a British Library resource here: http://sounds.bl.uk/

It draws together their own archive with one that was started by some academics in the 50s.

There's a long-standing radio series called The Archers that is supposedly set around that way and they sound as rural as ever! I imagine the northern part of the county would be more Brummie-speaking now, though.

The dialogue coach bloke said they liked the Gloucestershire accent because it had a "brittle" quality. I have no idea what that means.

[Butterbeer]

So, what does this tell us, except that the Movie producers don't give a hoot?
They could have picked Northern Ireland, or for tax reasons Jersey? Hell..why not South Africa?
Alaska?

Botswana maybe?

"Reveal" from the title of this thread seems a rather far fetch Draken...