SIR EDWIN LUTYENSLutyens, like many successful people, was
also a self-promoter and operator. In 1897
a new lifestyle magazine, Country Life, was
created by Edward Hudson. Not only did
Hudson feature many of Lutyens’ designs,
he commissioned a number of buildings
from him, including a refurbishment of
Lindisfarne Castle and the new Country
Life headquarters at 8 Tavistock Street,
London. Before Lutyens, Lindisfarne had
been a tiny, cold historic fortress on the top
of a Northumbrian coastal rock. In 1903 he
transformed it into a romantic Edwardian
getaway for Hudson.
By the beginning of the 20th century,
Lutyens, still in his thirties, was recognised
as one of the defining voices in BritishMemorial to the Missing of the Somme and
the imposing Menin Gate, as well as smaller
monuments across the British Empire.
He was also responsible for the simple white
headstones. Prior to 1914 the bodies of
soldiers were repatriated if their families
could afford the expense or disposed of in
mass graves. With the First World War
came the undertaking that each serviceman
should have a personal headstone even if
the inscription simply stated, “Known to
God” – a phrase selected byThe Jungle
Bookauthor Rudyard Kipling.
In the years between the two world
wars Lutyens completed many country
homes, while also designing offices in a
© JOHN MILLER/LANDMARK TRUST/HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP LTD/ALAMY very different style, full of arches, domes
This image:
Goddards in Surrey
is available to rent
Below: Gertrude
Jekyll at Deanery
Garden, c.1901Lutyens created great
war memorials across the
British Empire, but his
abiding memorial
remains the English
country house
architecture. At a time when a gentleman
might expect to have houses both in London
and in the country, Lutyens brilliantly
provided the latter. He would have been the
architect of Windy Corner, the Surrey home
of Lucy Honeychurch in EM Forster’s
A Room with a View. Important works of
this period include houses seemingly
without number in Surrey, Deanery Garden
and Folly Farm in Berkshire, Overstrand
Hall in Norfolk, and Julius Drewe’s Castle
Drogo in Devon. Drogo is perhaps the most
original English building that Lutyens ever
designed [see issue 210]. It is the reduction
of a medieval castle to its core elements- battlements, drawbridge, grand staircase
- yet simultaneously modern. The National
Trust are still struggling to reinforce and
maintain Drogo because it was built with
corners cut by the impatient owner, but it
is without doubt the last great castle built in
Britain without being in any way pastiche.
Given his winning combination of tact
and imagination, it’s not surprising that
even before the end of the First World War
Lutyens was chosen to build our national
memorials. He created not only the
Cenotaph in Whitehall but also the ³