Castle Drogo

En un regard

Le château en bref

Perched on a granite spur above the wooded Teign gorge, on the edge of Dartmoor National Park, Castle Drogo is said to be the last castle built in England. It is not, however, a fortress: it is a country house designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens for Julius Drewe, the wealthy founder of the Home and Colonial Stores chain, who wanted a residence befitting a supposed Norman ancestry. Work began in 1911 and stretched over some twenty years, slowed by the First World War, during which Drewe's eldest son, Adrian, was killed. The family moved in in 1925 and the chapel was completed in 1930, a year before the death of the patron. Lutyens's original, much larger design was only partly carried out. The building is entirely of granite, with massive walls, a crenellated parapet, a portcullis at the entrance and tall mullioned windows with small panes. Its flat roofs of asphalt on reinforced concrete leaked for a long time; the National Trust, owner since 1974, carried out a vast waterproofing and repointing campaign completed in 2021. Furnished interiors, terraced gardens among the highest in the Trust's care and paths through the gorge round off the visit.