Victorian pillar box

Drawing room

Chandelier

Courtyard

Tapestry

Victorian kitchen

Kitchen

Icebox

Servants' Hall

Denys Eyre Bower's Study

Housekeeper's Room

Tsongkhapa 1357-1419 founder of geloug school of Tibetan Buddhism 18 Century

Mandala

Great Hall

Wedding venue

Piano

This enlarges enough to read

Drawing room

As children, Bower and his brother would carry around real Japanese swords, and how a village policeman tried to stop them, even making them wooden toy swords to use instead.   Bower died alone in Chiddingstone Castle with dwindling funds, following his release from prison.   He was imprisoned for attempted murder of his girlfriend, allegedly shooting her accidentally with an antique pistol. 

His violent actions make us consider his role as a collector of cultural artefacts.   Although it’s not well-documented how he came to have a lot of the Japanese items in his collection, connected with ideas of colonialism we imagine that Bower’s collecting, and that of other Kentish collectors such as Henry Marsham (1845-1908), has something of an aggressive undertone to it. Bower started collecting Japanese goods long after it was popular to do so.   He turned his own home into a museum, charging entry to view his lacquer works, swords and armour in 1957.

Denys Eyre Bower

Four Poster Room

Four Poster Room

From the Gallery

Model

Wild Boar

Euphorbia

Pink and bluebells

The Orangery

Spanish bells

Very ancient tree

Chiddingstone village

Frogland

On the altar cloth

St Mary the Virgin

Ground ivy