Tharbad

Tharbad stood where the North Road, the later Greenway, crossed the Greyflood, the river formed by the meeting of the Hoarwell and the Loudwater, at the boundary between Eriador and Enedwaith. The land there is low and marshy, and the Númenóreans who built the town raised long causeways across the fens on both banks and a great bridge over the river, with a fortified port that could receive ships coming up the Gwathló from the sea. In the Second Age it was one of the chief places where the mariners of Númenor landed to fell the forests of Minhiriath and Enedwaith, and in the war of S.A. 1700 a Númenórean force landed at Tharbad and attacked Sauron's army from the south.

Under the kingdoms of the Dúnedain the town was held jointly by Arnor and Gondor, and its garrison and bridge kept open the one road between them. By the end of the Third Age nothing was left but ruins, a broken causeway and a dangerous crossing.

Tharbad's importance declined with the North-kingdom. After the division of Arnor it lay in Cardolan, and the ruin of that realm in 1409 and the Great Plague of 1636 left the town nearly empty; the road south became the Greenway, grass growing over stones that no one repaired. A remnant of the Dúnedain kept the bridge for some centuries longer. The Fell Winter of 2911 was followed by great floods in the spring of 2912 that devastated Enedwaith and Minhiriath and finally drove the last inhabitants away; the bridge fell and was not rebuilt.

In the summer of 3018 Boromir, riding north from Minas Tirith to seek Rivendell, came to Tharbad and lost his horse in the ford, and had to finish his long journey on foot. When the Fellowship set out south the Nazgûl were believed to have crossed the Greyflood near the same place, and the ruined town was one of the few landmarks of the road Aragorn knew in the empty south.

A ruined town and river crossing on the Greyflood (Gwathló) at the southern edge of Eriador, where the Greenway from Bree meets the road to Gondor through Enedwaith; Dunland lies to the east and the sea far to the west.