Vintage Hobbit recordings unearthed on Metro line
NexusVintage recordings of JRR Tolkien's novel The Hobbit have been unearthed on a railway line.
The cassettes featuring a BBC radio drama were found buried at the base of an overhead line mast on the Tyne and Wear Metro in Newcastle.
Head of infrastructure works delivery, Rob Cochrane, from operator Nexus, who made the discovery during a routine inspection of track between Chillingham Road and Walkergate, called it an "incredible find".
Nexus communications officer David Punton said the discovery was "baffling" and the public should not go near rail lines and "hide items in this way".
The Hobbit, which preceded The Lord of the Rings, was first published in 1937 and has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.
It recounts the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, a home-loving hobbit and an adaptation was first broadcast on Radio 4 in 1968 and released as a cassette box set 20 years later.
The tapes are on sale on online auction sites for between £10 and £20.
Cochrane said he spotted its gold front cover "out of the corner of my eye".
"It's certainly not the kind of thing you expect to discover.
"I dug around and all four tapes were there, and you could see straight away what they were, as they had 'The Hobbit written in black lettering," he said.
Punton said he had listened to the tapes and found "most are still just about working".
"It's up there as one of the more weird and wonderful items we've found during a major project," he said.
"We definitely don't encourage the public to go on to the railway and hide items in this way."
