The birthplace and childhood home of D. H. Lawrence, the English poet and author (
Sons and Lovers, The Rainbow, Women in Love, Lady Chatterley's Lover, etc., etc.), is just a few miles up the road from us. On Sunday afternoon we decided to take the 20 minute drive and have a look.
 |
| The house is at left. The museum at right was once a grocery store. |
The village of Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, was a coal mine company town when Lawrence was born in 1885. It has been cleaned up considerably since those days, but like most of Nottingham, maintains a working class atmosphere.
 |
| Endless rows of coal company housing in Eastwood. |
The old headquarters of the mine company is now a Lawrence museum (not pictured here), and the birth house has been restored. It did make me feel quite ancient to see things in the house that I recall from my grandparents' farm in northeastern Iowa!
 |
| The restored parlor of the Lawrence birth house. |
Many of Lawrence's books were banned in Britain until as late as the 1960s, but seem pretty tame today. He was a rebel with few kind words for his home town or home country, so it's no wonder he died in self-imposed exile.
 |
| Plaque on the wall tells the story. |
It's always good to spend some time meeting the neighbors.
