When I read my first Lawrence book (Woman in Love), I was amazed by just how much Eastwood stood out. The names of people and places were changed, but the words on the page mapped out the town clearly for anyone who has lived there a while. I dare say that fans of D.H.L who visit Eastwood from elsewhere would also be surprised by just how fully Lawrence incorporates Eastwood into his works.
But more than the obvious places mentioned, what delighted me the most was that I could pick out even some of the more obscure places (rightly or wrongly!) used in the book. And that's how I come to be writing this blog about a simple, innocuous railway bridge.
There comes a point in Women in Love (around halfway through), where Gudrun has need to find her way back to her home in Eastwood, from Gerald's large and stately pile (Shortlands), which is just outside the town (this is also a real place, but that's a blog for another day...). Rather than be driven, Gudrun insists on walking, which involves a walk down a long, dark countryside drive to get to the streets of Beldover (Eastwood). The bridge itself carries a colliery railway over the drive, and for such an unassuming location, becomes a key point in the plot (this is where any true literature fans and/or academics may need to set me straight if my rather unlearned and uncouth assessment is wide of the mark!). Both Gudrun and Gerald recognise the bridge as a point where the local miners 'spend time' with their lovers of a wet evening. For their own individual reasons each sees a poetry in them too joining together in this spot - Gerald as the Collier's natural 'master', Gudrun seemingly delighting in finding love in the same place as the collier's mistresses, but with a more impressive man. This marks the point in the book where Gudrun and Gerald move (for a while at least) from the stage of swooning and stolen glances to being 'official' lovers.
What delighted me about all this (it's not what your thinking!) was that I knew where this bridge was. I grabbed my local OS map (a well thumbed Explorer 260), and there it was - a long, countryside lane, with a bridge baring what is now a long abandoned colliery railway. It must be this bridge too I thought - any other route would have taken the two lovers right through the colliery itself, and there was no sign of that in the text. Women in Love has the following description of the location -
'They had descended the hill, and now they were coming to the square arch where the road passed under the colliery railway. The arch, Gudrun knew, had walls of squared stone, mossy on one side with water that trickled down, dry on the
other side.'So, the next day I set of to confirm it to myself. It says something about how much I may need to get out the house more that I took great satisfaction in finding 'my' bridge does indeed have sides of squared stone, with one side mossy and damp. For me this was enough (I'm disregarding the high probability of any given railway bridge having a damp, mossy, stone consitution!). A pivital location in one of 20th century English's greatest novels, and here it is, hidden down a footpath in this town, aside from so many other more highlighted and labelled Larence landmarks. For reasons I'm still not sure of, this has helped me connect even more with my own town. Even if I never have copped of with any mistress under the bridge!
I've included a map below from Google, showing the location of the bridge. It can be Found on OS260 at SK475477 (see an OS map online). If anyone wants to argue the toss on how accurate my placement is, please do in the comments below!The Penguin Classics edition of Women in Love has a great appendix discussing more of the locations Lawrence usewd - to buy it click the Amazon picture/link above. You can get a free version of the novel (no intro or appendix) from Project Gutenburg.
View Railway Bridge, Women in Love in a larger map
