Castle Drogo, Exeter, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest.  

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT

Castle Drogo was constructed from 1910 on a previously undeveloped site. The Tithe map (about 1840) indicates that the site was marginal grazing land on the upper slopes of the steep valley of the River Teign, with an area of woodland, Twenty Acre Plantation, 200 metres north of the river, and an area of poor pasture, Piddledown Common, extending some 1.5 kilometres along the valley. To the east Hunting Gate gave access to Drewston Common, while the walk now known as the Hunters' Path was established by the late 19th century. The 1st and 2nd edition Orndance Survey maps (1885 and 1906) show that the site remained substantially unchanged when it was acquired by Julius Drewe in 1910.

Julius Drewe (1856-1931) founded the Home and Colonial Stores in 1883 and rapidly amassed a considerable fortune; in 1899 he bought Wadhurst Hall, Kent, establishing himself as a landed gentleman. Soon after, a genealogist persuaded Drewe that he was descended from the Norman Drogo family, one of whom gave his name to Drewsteignton in the 12th century. Changing the spelling of his name from Drew to the more authentic Drewe, Julius recovered family property in East Devon, and subsequently decided to establish an estate at Drewsteignton. The site chosen for the proposed Castle was glebe land, but as Drewe's cousin, Richard Peek, was rector of Drewsteignton, he was able to purchase it in 1910. Further land was acquired, including Whiddon Park, a 16th century deer park on the south side of the Teign Gorge. By the time of Drewe's death in 1931 his eastate comprised 1500 acres (625 hectares). Edwin Lutyens (1869-1944) was commissioned to produce plans for a castle and gardens in August 1910. The new house was to have genuine defensive characteristics, and was intended by Drewe as a commemoration of his Norman ancestry. The initial scheme with a courtyard plan and a massive barbican to the north-east was modified several times from late 1911, and progress on the building was delayed by the outbreak of war in 1914. It was finally completed in its present reduced form in 1930.

Lutyens produced a scheme for formal terraced gardens on the east side of the Castle in 1915, which was further elaborated in 1921 with a rill, pools and a circular lawn, all enclosed by yew hedges. This scheme was abandoned as Drewe was unhappy about the terracing it entailed, and because he felt that the garden would be overlooked by the service quarters. A new plan was obtained in 1922 from R Wallace and Co of Tunbridge Wells, whose partner, George Dillistone, had previously worked for Drewe at Wadhurst Hall. A new secluded site to the west of the Castle was chosen for the formal terraced garden, and the area to the east was allowed to merge gradually with the surrounding tandscape. The plan and some of the details of the formal garden at Castle Drogo is recalled at the slightly later Castle Tor, Torquay, where Dillistone is believed to have worked with Lutyens' pupil Fred Harrild from 1929.

Drewe's eldest son had been killed in Flanders in 1917, and Castle Drogo was inherited by his second son Basil in 1931. It remained in the family until 1974, when Anthony Drewe and his son, Dr Christopher Drewe, gave the Castle and 600 acres (250 hectares) to the National Trust.