Literary Passion · Teversal, Nottinghamshire
Teversal (fictional Tevershall)
Teversal is generally accepted as the model for Lawrence's fictional colliery village Tevershall. Teversal Manor is one traditional candidate for Wragby Hall, but no single real house can be identified as definitive.
The story
Teversal, a colliery village in Nottinghamshire, is generally taken to be the "Tevershall" of Lady Chatterley's Lover, and the Grade II-listed Teversal Manor is a rival candidate for the fictional Wragby Hall. D. H. Lawrence grew up a few miles away in Eastwood and walked this coal-scarred country obsessively; the "utter, soulless ugliness of the coal-and-iron Midlands" that horrifies Constance Chatterley is the landscape of his childhood. Neither the Renishaw nor the Teversal identification is provable — Lawrence built Wragby from several places. What is certain is that the novel's 1960 obscenity trial, in which prosecutor Mervyn Griffith-Jones asked the jury whether it was a book they would wish "your wife or your servants to read," ended in acquittal and sold roughly two million copies within two years, effectively ending literary censorship in Britain.
More stories at this spot
Sources
- The National
- LitCharts
- R v Penguin Books Ltd, Wikipedia
- The Conversation (Chatterley trial, 60 years on)
- Literary Hub (the counted obscenities)
- New Statesman (Chatterley; the page-204 tally)
- Mike Higginbottom, "Chatterleys not at home" (Renishaw visit)
- Wikipedia, Lady Chatterley's Lover (three versions, Orioli, Florence 1928)
Nearby on the map
The Gothic 'party palace' of 'mad, bad and dangerous to know' Lord Byron, backdrop to a rakish life of affairs; it was Lady Caroline Lamb, after their affair, who coined that immortal phrase. Note: rumours of a relationship with his half-sister Augusta are historically disputed and should be flagged as such.
Documented historyHot spotLiterary PassionRenishaw Hall (model for Wragby Hall)Renishaw, Derbyshire · EnglandThe Sitwells' Derbyshire seat is widely credited as the model for Wragby Hall in D.H. Lawrence's once-banned 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', the century's most notorious tale of a lady and her gamekeeper
Fact & fictionQueer HeritageMillthorpe (Edward Carpenter & George Merrill)Millthorpe, Derbyshire · EnglandThe market-garden home where the socialist philosopher Edward Carpenter lived openly with George Merrill decades before decriminalisation — sandal-making, vegetarianism and 'the intermediate sex' in the Derbyshire hills. A touch on the backside from Merrill, E.M
Documented historySpotted an error, or hold a better source? Write to marquis@marquisdemayfair.com — corrections are made, never defended. Our methodology.