The Encyclopedia of Arda - an interactive guide to the world of J.R.R. Tolkien
Dates
The roads that crossed here were constructed in the last years of the Second Age; the North-South Road began to fall into decay from the seventeenth century of the Third Age
Location
At the crossing of the Greenway (North-South Road) and the East-West Road, immediately to the west of Bree
Origins
The crossing roads were built by Elendil and his sons
Race
Division
Settlements
Bree lay close by to the east
Meaning
Greenway comes from the ruined and overgrown state of the North-South Road in the later Third Age, especially the part that ran past Bree

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About this entry:

  • Updated 20 March 2023
  • This entry is complete

Greenway-crossing

The crossroads of the Greenway with the East-West Road

Map of the Greenway-crossing

After the establishment of the Kingdoms of the Dúnedain in Middle-earth, a North-South Road was made to connect them, running for hundreds of miles from Arnor in the North to Gondor in the South. Near the centre of the North-kingdom of Arnor, it crossed the East-West Road that led across Eriador from the shores of the Great Sea to the foothills of the Misty Mountains. At the busy crossing of these two important roads, a little eastward of the cross-roads themselves, lay the town of Bree, whose Inn received travellers of all kinds from across the lands of Middle-earth.

As the centuries passed, the North-kingdom broke apart and eventually fell, and the North-South Road fell out of repair. By the end of the Third Age it was ruined and covered in grass, so that the people who lived around Bree came to call it the Greenway. The East-West Road remained in use, and travellers still came to Bree, but the old road that had run north to Fornost and south to distant Osgiliath was nearly forgotten, and the once-busy crossing place had become known as the Greenway-crossing.


Indexes:

About this entry:

  • Updated 20 March 2023
  • This entry is complete

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