D H Lawrence and the Haggs

In December 1926, D. H. Lawrence wrote a letter to Rolf Gardiner and described "the country of my heart." Outlining the route of a walk through the area, he continued "from the hills, if you look across at Underwood wood, you'll see a tiny red farm on the edge of the wood. That was Miriam's farm - where I got my incentive to write."

Miriam was, of course, Jessie Chambers - fictionalised as Miriam Leivers in Sons and Lovers - and the farm was Haggs Farm, the home of the Chambers family from 1898 to 1910.

Professor John Worthen has suggested that "no buildings in the Eastwood region, not even the five houses where the Lawrence family lived between 1885 and 1912, have a greater claim on the interest of all those who recognise Lawrence as the greatest genius to emerge from this part of the English Midlands in the last 100 years. The Haggs was, for him, perhaps the most important place (after home) in the whole of his young life."

The farmhouse, and the Chambers family, are at the centre of much of Lawrence's early work, the farm is described as "Strelley Mill" in The White Peacock and as "Willey Farm" in Sons and Lovers. The provided the setting for his first novel, The White Peacock, some of his early poems and several short stories including A Prelude and The Shades of Spring.

From "Haggs Farm, The Chambers Family and D. H. Lawrence", 1997