Detmar Blow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Horwood House, designed by Detmar Blow in an Elizabethan style in 1912

Detmar Blow (1867 - 1939) was a British architect of the early 20th century, who designed principally in the arts and crafts style. He clients belonged chiefly to the British aristocracy, he later became estates manager to the Duke of Westminster.

Blow was one of the last disciples of John Ruskin who as a young man he had accompanied on is last journey abroad. Blow was patronised by the Wyndham family, who at their country house "Clouds" created a salon inhabited by many of the leading intellectual and artistic figures of the day, known as The Souls who welcomed into Blow into their midst admiring his romantic socialist views.

Blows architectural work was very much influenced by his mentors Ruskin and William Holman Hunt, and in his early career he travelled artisan-like with his own band of masons from project to project. He married the aristocratic and intellectual Winifred Tollemache, and began to be patronised by the higher echelons of the British aristocracy. While much of his early work was, like that of his contemporary Lutyens, in the Arts and Crafts style, his later work was dictated by the whims of his aristocratic patrons. At one point during his career he and Lutyens contemplated entering together into an architectural partnership.

Amongst the buildings designed by Blow were " Hilles" near Stroud in Gloucestershire, the mansion he built for himself, very much influenced by the ideals of Ruskin and Morris, and various properties for the Duke of Westminster including a hunting lodge near Bordeaux. In 1908 he rebuilt Bramham Park for the Lane Fox family, however, this commission was more a recreation of the former Baroque house which had been destroyed by fire.

Blow became a great friend of the Duke of Westminster, which led to the latter appointing Blow in 1916 to manage the vast Westminster estates which covered vast tracts of Belgravia and Mayfair in London, a position to which the idealistic Blow was completely unsuitable. A a result of the demands of running Westminster's estate, Blow allowed his architectural career to dwindle. This proved to be a catastrophic mistake, when his reputation was later destroyed. Blow had become enemies with the Duchess of Westminster who convinced her husband that Blow was embezzling money from the estate, a claim Blow vigorously denied. Following a vindictive campaign of hatred by the Westminsters, Blow and his family were shunned by society. He was driven by the scandal to insanity.

After his death and the divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Westminster the Duke re-investigated the matter and found Blow to be innocent of all accusations of dishonesty.