Buckland Gate

Situated just down the road from the Brandywine Bridge, this gate, rather than the Bucklebury Ferry, served as the principle link between Buckland and the Shire. The portal itself was of heavy timber, counterweighted, and swung on stone posts. A four-foot high stone wall anchored it to either side, stretching from the Brandywine low water mark, down an embankment, some 100 feet to the west of the road. The Hay itself began where the stone wall ended, about 200 yards to the east. The trees scattered amidst the small fields around the gate were only nominally part of the Old Forest; it got dangerous a mile or so to the southeast. When the Dark Riders came to the gate in T.A.3018 searching for Baggins, the magically befuddled warden on the daylight watch barely remembered their passage. He had, of course, no authority to actually stop anyone from entering Buckland. When the invaders came back north after the raid at Crickhollow, there was no time for enchantments, so they overran the half-dozen gatewards who had answered the call of the Great Horn and vaulted the walls to make their escape.