The village at the southern tip of Buckland, at the place where the River Withywindle flowed out of the Old Forest into the Brandywine. It was named for the fact that it stood at the end of the High Hay, the Hedge raised to protect the Bucklanders from the strange things that lived in the Forest and beyond it. According to the poem "Bombadil Goes Boating", its inhabitants had a more fierce and protective attitude than most Hobbits, which is hardly surprising given the perilous location of their village.
Notes
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III 2340 is the date of the settlement of Buckland, and thus the earliest point when Haysend could have been created. Based on its name, it was presumably founded later than this, at the time the High Hay was established. We have no direct indication of when that took place, but we do know that there was a period after the settlement of Buckland when there was no defensive Hedge.The only hint we have is that, at the time of the War of the Ring, the Hedge had been 'planted many generations ago' (The Fellowship of the Ring I 5), so it (and presumably also Haysend) was at least several centuries old at that time.
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2 |
It's possible that Tolkien modelled this name on Wallsend in northern England, which also stood at the end of a long defensive structure. In this case, the town takes its name from its location at the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall.
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- Updated 21 October 2018
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