Lothlorien Bridge destroyed

The big news after the storm last week was that the newly-restored bridge at Fernside was pretty much completely destroyed by a falling tree.



One of several trees in fact - in total, five separate trees on the property came down in the storm. From the photo it looks more like it's been precariously placed on the bridge rather than crashing down on it.

Most of last year, the property was off-limits to visitors as the new owners drained the lake and refurbished the bridge, which had just been completed. I took this photo of it at the time:




In the movies, the bridge looked more elvish of course - check this one instead.


The bridge was pretty unique in Middle-earth terms - it was allegedly the only man-made object to appear in LOTR, that existed before the movie was made. Everything else (around 45,000 props or so) was custom-made by the Weta Workshop, or carefully digitised by Weta Digital.


For the foreseeable future, my tours won't be visiting the location due to the obvious safety concerns. Watch this space for updates.