CASTLE DROGO

Devon

Castle Drogo is quite unique.  It is both a left over from another world and a pointer towards a new one.  It stands in a most handsome position on the edge of Dartmoor.  In fact, so picturesque is its setting that the locals insisted it would spoil the view.  In response the architect, Edwin Lutyens, built a life-size wooden replica on the site to prove that it would enhance the view rather than spoil it.

Julius Drewe was the man behind this mammoth task, a fan of the "gothick" style which was already about 50 years out of date by the time Lutyens began construction in 1911. Drewe and Lutyens, however, were both strong willed men and clashes occurred throughout construction. Lutyens wanted to construct a full-blooded Castle replica with baileys and barbican.  Drewe wanted a castellated mansion.  What we see today was their compromise, built in dramatically smooth granite with modernistic approaches.

Drewe was a man with huge ambition and vision - but when Lutyens began to speak about a gallery 160 feet in length and fireplaces 12 feet wide even Drewe began to back down a little, his diary records that he was grateful that Lutyens had not seen the Pyramids before he began work on Castle Drogo!

The Castle was eventually completed in 1940, just as World War II broke out - by which time Lutyens was dead, but Drewe lived to ripe old age and died in 1974 leaving the Castle to the National Trust who own it today.

It is a fascinating and weird place to visit, and just as Lutyens designed it adds so much to the view that it is hard to imagine the vista without it.

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2001