Eastwood author D. H. Lawrence, in his semi-autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers, describes a visit to the Hemlock Stone on a Good Friday early in the 20th century. The site was then very much a local attraction:

They came to the Hemlock Stone at dinner-time. Its field was crowded with folk from Nottingham and Ilkeston. They had expected a venerable and dignified monument. They found a little, gnarled, twisted stump of rock, something like a decayed mushroom, standing out pathetically on the side of the field. Leonard and Dick immediately proceeded to carve their initials, ‘L.W.’ and ‘R.P.’ in the old red sandstone; but Paul desisted because he had read in the newspaper satirical remarks about initial-carvers, who could find no other road to immortality. Then all the lads climbed to the top of the rock to look around. Everywhere in the field below, factory girls and lads were eating lunch or sporting about. Beyond was the garden of an old manor. It had yew-hedges and thick clumps and borders of yellow crocuses round the lawn.