Christopher Hatton Turnor, architect

From the evidence of the sketch, Christopher Hatton Turnor (1873-1940) seems to have been the lead architect of the Shrines, although it is not known if he supervised the building work.

After leaving Oxford University, Turnor had worked firstly for Edwin Lutyens and later for the architect Robert Weir Schultz (1860-1951) - both of whom he remained lifelong friends with. (Turnor's relationship with the former is particularly interesting, as Lutyens was subsequently to design the replacement for the Hyde Park War Shrine, the Centotaph, as well as many war memorials.) Turnor's most famous work is the Watts Gallery in Surrey, and he designed a number of other buildings of, in Weir Schultz's words, 'striking individuality'. Turnor was a skilled craftsman, making furniture and fittings, and carrying out carving and decoration.

After inheriting property in Lincolnshire, he became increasingly interested in estate management and social reform, publishing several books on these subjects. Christopher Turnor - known as Kit - was also a lifelong friend of Violet Willis Fleming's brother, Charles Phillimore, a trustee of the Fleming Estate. Phillimore wrote in The Times after Turnor's death that Turnor's 'ability in his many fields of activity amounted to genius'.

 
Copyright © 2008-2011 Project Steering Group / Trustees of the Willis Fleming Historical Trust. All rights reserved.   Sitemap.