In the care of the National Trust today, �11m must now be raised to safeguard the structure of this compelling folly
"I wish I had t'wit t'woo you." So Edwin Lutyens began an after-dinner talk to the high-minded, high-society Owl Club in Cape Town a century ago. Funny or not, Lutyens, who often looked like a startled if kindly owl, now has need to woo people of a much later generation ? and closer to home. He may well have been the finest British architect of his generation ? late Victorian, Edwardian, New Georgian ? and possibly the best since Wren, yet Castle Drogo remains his achilles heel. A pediment, as it were, split too far. A 20th-century castle built for Julius Drewe, a self-made grocery millionaire, Castle Drogo broods, owl-like, over Dartmoor's Teign Gorge. Yet from the day of its completion in 1930 it has leaked. Whether Drewe or Lutyens had insisted on Castle Drogo's flat roofs is a matter of debate; what is not at issue is that asphalt, the curse of so many 1960s housing estates, ruled the roofs. In the care of the National Trust today, �11m must now be raised to safeguard the structure of this compelling folly. Is it worth it? Absolutely. Castle Drogo is the dream of the Englishman's home as his castle realised on a heroic scale in adventurous design. It is the stuff of epic poetry. It would make a wondrous film set for stories of dungeons and dragons tales. Every great architect should be allowed one folly, even one mistake. Within a decade, if the money is found, Castle Drogo should be waterproof; then its quixotic architecture and unlikely wit should be allowed to woo us once and for all.
Pop and rock Annuities Alexander Litvinenko Liverpool Health & wellbeing Bradford Bulls
No comments:
Post a Comment