Great Idea, Julius!

Julius had made a bob or two selling tea up in the big city. He’d wandered down to Devon with the idea that he might have a family connection to Drewsteignton, where his uncle was the local vicar. He’d come down to visit and was enjoying a pint in the tap room of the Drewe Arms when Mabel, the landlady called over saying, “Oi, Julius, there’s someone yere asking for ee.”
 
“Sir Edwin what are you doing here?” “Actually, old chap, I’m looking for some cheap granite to finish off a rush job in the city.  Some of these bu**ers want an arm and a leg for their bits of stone but I heard you were down this way and thought you might know someone.”
 
“You’re in luck, Lutyens (for twas he the renowned architect), I’ve just bought a lump of land with a quarry and I can let you have a bit of granite if you’ll do me a favour in return.”
 
“Why, what are you up to?” “Well you probably don’t know, but this genealogist fellow tells me I’m historically the master of most of this land round here but the yokels are just laughing at me, saying, if you want to be master of this cr*phole, you’m welcome to it! So I was thinking of building a ruddy great castle up on that hill over there to show ‘em what's what!”
 
“That’s a good wheeze”, said Sir Edwin Lutyens, “I’ll do it for mates rates, if you’ll let me have that granite to finish off my bridge at Hampton Court.”
 
Anyway, they settled on a quick build, nothing fancy, a few turrets and a flat roof. “I’m not sure you want a flat roof up there”, Sir Edwin said, “it’s a bit exposed.”
 
“That’ll do fine, plenty of granite will keep the weather out. I’m not putting lead up there, the towrags round here will have it away before you can say, what’s for breakfast?”
 
Surprisingly enough, the locals continued to laugh at him, especially when he had a great big coat of arms knocked up and carved over the door. They laughed even more when it wasn't finished until 1930 and he dropped dead a year later. Everyone wondered why he didn’t even get Kevin McCloud in to sneer at him and film it for ‘Grand Designs’?
 
Anyhow, they had nothing but trouble with that flat roof and since the family gave it to the National Trust, they’ve had the job of dealing with it. Personally, I think they’d have been better off getting the military to hit it with a few high explosive shells and leave it looking more like a romantic ruin like Corfe Castle.
 
I did hear that the scaffolding was down and thought I’d get a picture from Hunter’s Path. Wrong! They took it down last summer for the tourists then put it back up again. That’s why my blip is a nice picture I took after walking over Piddledown Common. It’s Sharp Tor and the view over the Teign gorge. There are a few more here if you'd like to see them.