HYLAND
Christopher Hatton Turnor, designer
of the Watts Gallery, Surrey and the
Stoneham War Shrine, Hampshire,
trained initially as an architect under
Edwin Lutyens and Robert Weir Schultz.
Lutyens described Turnor, not without
admiration, as "odd and mad"; Turnor's
architectural career was brief, for he is
known mainly as an agricultural reformer,
having inherited vast tracts of land.
C r e s w e l l 's g r a n d p a r e n t s d i d n o t
commission the house; rather, they
discovered it, in 1908, half-finished,
in a most fortuitous way, after they
took a wrong turn on the road while
motoring to visit cousins nearby. Thus
began a happy tenure which has lasted
generations.
Creswell's grandparents, particularly
his grandmother, Isabel Vulliamy (1869-
1956), entrain a fascinating pedigree
and character. Vulliamy's father, of
Huguenot descent, fled France in the
1880s. Isabel met and married Col.
Edmund Creswell, a widower with no
fewer than eight children, and together
they came to live at Copse Hill, which
Turnor had originally designed for a Miss
Head and her female companion.
As the doyenne of Copse Hill, Isabel
Vulliamy Creswell did surprising things.
Thus began a
happy tenure
which has
lasted
generations.
