Cindy-Lou Dale

Whether you decide to visit for just one day or stay awhile, you’ll soon discover that Nottinghamshire is an English county of contrasts -- from a pulsating city, beneath which lies a labyrinth of over 400 man-made caves dating back to the 13th century, to serene forests of Robin Hood fame, to historic houses in friendly villages.

 

Nottingham, the county’s capital, is universally famous for things such as lace, football and D H Lawrence.

 

It is a multinational city, with a mixture of cultures that has sympathetically merged the new with the old and offers modern shopping facilities as well as traditional markets.

 

October brings the Goose Fair -- the country's largest three-day fair which reputedly dates back a thousand years or more.

 

The culture flourishes with a modern concert hall and two theatres. Nottingham is proud of its history and boasts its heritage in a number of remarkable museums with many of its buildings dating back to the 15th century, like the church of St Mary on High Pavement.

 

William the Conqueror ordered the first castle to be built on Nottingham’s famous rock which rises 130 feet above the River Trent. Today, at the foot of Castle Rock you’ll find ‘Jerusalem’, supposedly the oldest pub in England and on the outskirts of the city, where the Lace Market area once was, now stands Lace Hall.

 

The county of Nottinghamshire was home to the contemporary writer Alan Sillitoe, who grew up in the industrial outskirts of Nottingham; D H Lawrence who made the mining town of Eastwood prominent.

 

And then there was Byron. Life was not all genteel delight for the handsome and crippled heir – Byron’s life was tragic in his quest for love and acceptance.

 

Born to an emotional and obese woman who claimed royal decent and a squanderer for a father, George Gordon Noel Byron was born January 22nd 1788 at a humble address in London, 16 Holles Street, (which today houses a department store).

 

Byron was born with a disability -- his right calf and ankle were inflicted by infantile paralysis which could not be cured.

 

Soon after his birth his mother moved to Scotland where Bryon attended a grammar school during his formative years. He later claimed that he was subjected to Calvinist instruction and that these years established in him a steadfast certainty that his future was doomed.

 

The death of his great-uncle, also known as “The Wicked Lord” and “the Devil Byron” left him his title and estate, Newstead Abbey which had originally been presented to the Byron family by the infamous King Henry VIII. 

 

When the young Lord Byron arrived to take ownership of his inheritance, he found his new home, Newstead Abbey, a crumbling ruin, fast perishing from rot and decay and was not habitable. Byron and his mother settled nearby at Burgage Manor in Southwell, where he wrote his first poem:

 

In Nottingham county there lives at Swine Green,
As curst an old lady as ever was seen;
And when she does die, which I hope will be soon,
She firmly believes she will go the moon.

 

With the aide of his mother’s attorney, John Hanson, young Lord Byron sought the services of a reputable doctor in London, who prescribed a special brace for his deformed leg and in the fall of 1799 he attended Dulwich.

 

In 1801 Byron went to Harrow. The signs of his developing sexual uncertainty became distinct with his passionate kinships with younger boys. He scorned authority which eventually led to him being expelled. He spent only a term at Cambridge in 1805, before descending into a life of immorality in London.

 

 

Achieving fame by age 24 with his dramatic poem ‘Childe Harold's Pilgrimage’, he was able to further indulge his personal obsessions to ever new heights, which led to him fleeing England in evading debt as well as a broken marriage. He settled into a lifestyle of promiscuity in Italy and made his libido the basis for his most renowned work, the Don Juan. He assisted the Greek’s in their independence struggle and died of fever and exposure, aged 36 on April 19th 1824.

 

The Greeks embalmed his body -- his heart was removed and buried in Missolonghi and his remains sent to England who refused him burial in Westminster Abbey, and instead placed his body in the vault of his ancestors near Newstead (St. Mary Magdalen Church, Hucknall, Torkard, Nottinghamshire). A century and a half after his death, Lord Byron become spiritually acceptable in his homeland and has a plaque in the Poets' Corner of Westminster Abbey.

 

Byron, who outraged England with his outrageous exploits, was in fact a psychopath, according to a leading psychiatrist. Byron was renowned across Europe for his over-the-top life style as well as his witty poems. He was infamous for his immoral ways, driven by drugs and alcohol, which ran onto allegations that he had carnal knowledge of several hundred of females - and liabilities running deep in the red.

 

A psychiatrist at the Beside Health Centre in Dublin, Professor Michael Fitzgerald, reached this conclusion after examining accounts of Byron's life.

 

“The poet had an unstable upbringing - seen as a key factor in the development of a psychopath. Some prefer giving it another name -- attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) inherited from ancestors. On closer scrutiny, his family tree reveals numerous wastrels, psychopaths, folk suffering from depression and eccentrics. Like Byron, most people with ADHD are publicity-seekers and have a remarkable appetite for creating commotion.

 

Prof Fitzgerald stated that by the time Byron attained maturity, a complete psychopath had appeared. "There's no doubt he had an all-encompassing pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others. His impulsivity could be seen in his extreme promiscuity." Writing in the Journal of Medical Biography, Prof Fitzgerald argues that Byron's poetry may have benefited from his psychiatric problems. "Persons with ADHD can be highly creative."

 

A leading authority on Byron, Prof Malcolm Kelsall, of Cardiff University's School of English, said such a mental condition tied in well with the themes of the poet's works. Prof Kelsall said: "The way he used language was tremendously subversive - he's a great rebel. That has made him tremendously attractive with revolutionary movements throughout Europe."

 

Taking a guided tour through Newstead Abbey today, you cannot escape an unmistakable eerie presence. The dark influences on Byron’s work are evident in the gothic overtones in the exhibits.

 

The spectacular landscape, which covers some 300 acres, owes much of its beauty to the River Leen, which feeds the lakes and ponds. It is claimed that some of the water features date back to medieval times. Near one of the ponds is a monument to Byron’s dog, Boatswain, who died of rabies in 1808. Some of the other gardens at the Abbey are the Fern Garden, Rockery, Sub-Topical Garden, Spanish Garden, the Japanese Garden and the Rose Garden.

 

The Abbey has hosted a wide variety of events, fairs, outdoor theatre productions and activities, including events such as the Jane Austen Ball, Victorian weekends and outdoor antique fairs.

 

--ends--

 

© Cindy-Lou Dale 2005

Word count 1,823