Former D.H. Lawrence home sells for £91,000

The writer was born in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire

A former home of the author D.H. Lawrence has been sold for £91,000 at auction.

The three-bedroom end-of-terrace house in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, was the writer's home between 1903 and 1908.

Historian Gavin Gillespie said the house - one of four in the town the author lived in - was now in "a very poor state".

Auction House London, which oversaw the sale, said it had captured people's imagination.

The home was sold at auction for £91,000 on Wednesday

Mr Gillespie said the house, 97 Lynncroft, was where the author of Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley's Lover had lived before leaving the town.

However, he had returned to it in 1910 to see his mother, before her death from cancer.

"The house has been left to decay and now is in a very poor state," he said.

"It was just by accident I realised it was up for auction.

"It would be good if somebody wanted it for a family home - unless some big organisation wants to buy it and use it as a museum.

"It does get a lot of visitors, so whoever lives there would have to be prepared for that."

Moving with the times

Historian Gavin Gillespie said he hoped the house would go to a family

• D.H. Lawrence's birthplace, on 8a Victoria Street, is now a museum

• When the author was two, his family moved into The Breach House, also in Eastwood, where they lived until 1891

• They then moved into a home in Walker Street until 1903

• They moved to the house in Lynncroft in 1903, at a time when Lawrence was working as a teacher and studying at University College, Nottingham

Andrew Binstock, co-founder of Auction House London, said: "On this particular occasion, what seemed like a very ordinary three-bed end-of-terrace house in Eastwood turned out to be something quite different.

"It seems to have captured quite a few people's imagination, that's for sure.

"Every once in a while, you get a property that has an interesting back story which obviously makes the whole auction sector a bit more interesting.

"Traditionally with anything that has a celebrity angle, you would expect the price to be reflected in that because hopefully you will have more people bidding."