Cossall: D.H. Lawrence (The Rainbow) Country

After a few days in my hometown, Bury (Lancashire), I took a train ride to Ilkeston (Nottinghamshire) to camp in Cossall village:

Visiting Cossall was imperative for me as it contains significant sites that influenced D.H. Lawrence's masterpiece, The Rainbow, where the village is referred to as Cossethay, of course.

Directly before I reached St. Catherine's church, I came across Church Cottage, the home of Lawrence's fiancee, Louie Burrows, which features in The Rainbow (as Anna and Will Brangwen's Yew Tree Cottage, given to them by Tom after their marriage):

Having glimpsed Church Cottage, I went to St. Catherine's Church to have a look at the model for where Anna and Will Brangwen get married in The Rainbow:

Outside the church, I met a man who was in the process of fixing an old radio transistor who told me an intriguing story about a homeless man who was regularly putting a showerhead on the church drinking water tap to wash himself:

Despite St. Catherine's being locked:

The radio transistor man led me to a kind man with the key who, alongside a friendly local woman, showed me around the inside of the church:

What wonderful arches:

Of particular interest for me was the stained glass window containing the lamb:

As, in The Rainbow, the lamb prompts Anna Brangwen into a stream of consciousness where she feels nauseated by the concept of transubstantiation and becomes determined to fight against her husband Will's High Church religiosity:

Besides this, the two wonderful people who showed me round the church were keen to inform that much of the carving for the stained glass windows was carried out by Louie Burrows' father.

Before leaving the church, I had a pleasant conversation about how, in The Rainbow, the drowning of Tom Brangwen during the flood at Marsh Farm symbolises the dawn/advance of a new modern age, with my two guides informing that to this day, the area still gets flooded.

Yes, it was great to be chatting about The Rainbow in the heart of Lawrence country:

Before leaving St. Catherine's, I noticed a Battle of Waterloo memorial in the church grounds:

And the Willoughby Almshouses which lay on the other side of Church Cottage:

Have just read that these Almshouses were founded by George Willoughby in 1685 for four poor single men over 60 and four poor single women over 55 years old.