Tuesday, July 09, 2024

Dr Christopher David Drewe 1942-2024

Dr Christopher David Drewe, who died 30 June, 2024, aged 81, was head of that landed gentry family formerly of Castle Drogo, Devon.

Drewe, together with his father, donated the Castle Drogo estate to the National Trust in 1974. Castle Drogo is a country house and mixed-revivalist castle near Drewsteignton, Devon, England. Constructed between 1911 and 1930, it was the last castle to be built in England. The client was Julius Drewe, the hugely successful founder of the Home and Colonial Stores. Drewe chose the site in the belief that it formed part of the lands of his supposed medieval ancestor, Drogo de Teigne. The architect he chose to realise his dream was Sir Edwin Lutyens, then at the height of his career. Lutyens lamented Drewe's determination to have a castle but nevertheless produced one of his finest buildings. The architectural critic Christopher Hussey described the result: "The ultimate justification of Drogo is that it does not pretend to be a castle. It is a castle, as a castle is built, of granite, on a mountain, in the twentieth century".

The castle was given to the National Trust in 1974, the first building constructed in the twentieth century that the Trust acquired. 

The Old Etonian was born 16 August, 1942, son of Major Anthony Haselden Drewe, MC (1920-1991), and his wife the former Margaret Emma Lindsay (1916-2002). He qualified as a doctor in 1968.

His only sibling is a sister, Ruth (known as Bunny), born 24 December, 1945, wife of Patrick R.C. Johnstone.

Christopher Drewe married in 1998, as her second husband, Cicely Elizabeth Theodosia Hesketh-Prichard (1942-2016), formerly wife of Martin Charles Jacoby, and daughter of Major Michael Hesketh-Prichard (1909-1988), and his wife the former Venetia Alice Green (1915-1992).

He leaves a step-son, Charles Jacoby, and step-daughter, Katherine.

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