The Towers

The Towers of Emyn Beraid (slightly conjectural)

After Elendil landed in the northern lands of Middle-earth at the end of the Second Age, he founded the North-kingdom of the Dúnedain in the wild lands of Eriador. He soon formed a close alliance and friendship with Gil-galad, the Elf-king of Lindon to the west. As a gift for his friend, Gil-galad caused three White Towers to be raised on a range of hills that lay near the borders between their two realms. From these Towers, the hills gained a new name: the Tower Hills, or Emyn Beraid in Elvish.

Gil-galad made three of these Elf-towers on the Tower Hills, of which the tallest was known as Elostirion. Within this tall tower, one of the three palantíri of the North-kingdom was placed. This was the so-called Elendil Stone, or the Seeing-stone of Emyn Beraid, and it had unusual properties. Rather than communicating with the other Seeing-stones, it looked back into the West with straight sight, allowing Elendil to see into the distant and lost lands beyond the Sea. The Elendil Stone remained within Elostirion across the millennia of the Third Age, until it was carried away into the West after the end of the War of the Ring.

After the end of that War, the newly-crowned King Elessar extended the lands of the Hobbits westward. Before this time, the Elf-towers of the Tower Hills had stood beyond the western borders of the Shire, but now they fell within the newly established Westmarch of the Shire-hobbits. A community sprang up beneath them, centred around the place known as Undertowers (or sometimes simply 'the Towers') in reference to the gleaming White Towers that crested the hills of Emyn Beraid.