DENYS EYRE BOWER (1905 - 1977)
Denys Bower was an eccentric collector who bought Chiddingstone Castle in 1956 and left it to a private trust on his death in 1977. If you visit the castle today it is filled with his collections of Japanese, Egyptian and Stuart antiquities. Denys had an extraordinary life. For the first 35 years he lived with his parents working as a bank clerk. In 1939 he married Silvia Bianca, a Jewish refugee from Italy, and opened an antiques shop at No.2 Baker Street near Portman Square. Sadly this marriage ended after three years and his second marriage to a Dutch girl in 1949 lasted an even shorter time. Bower professed to be a Buddhist. His right hand was disabled after a motorcycle accident when he was a youth and he needed glasses for reading but preferred a monocle. His disabilities meant that he did not serve in the Second World War. He bought Chiddingstone Castle in 1956 for £6,000 with a loan for the whole amount from the Bank and opened it to the public to display his collections.
In September 1957, his life took a curious turn. He had begun an attachment with Anna, a woman who was 30 years younger than him and claimed to be the Comptesse de Estainville though she was really the daughter of a Peckham Bus Driver. After more than a year she broke off the engagement. Denys, who was distraught, bought a revolver and visited her. When he arrived she was making breakfast and asked him to come back later. When he returned she let him in but said she was going shopping and that he could not come with her. She turned to adjust a budgie cage. Bower pulled the revolver out of his pocket fumbled it and accidentally hit the Countess. He thought he had killed her and turned the gun on himself wounding himself severely in the spleen.. He came to in the Miller Hospital in Greenwich with a policeman standing over him and croaked out that Anna’s father, the Count Grimaldi must be told. The police from this moment thought that Bower was not quite right in the head. The countess had only minor injuries and was released after a few days. Bower was released from Hospital after a fortnight and was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for attempted murder. The press had a field day with this sensational story but Bower later made legal history in a libel case with the Sunday Pictorial when they were forced to disclose the source of their information. Denys was still in Wormwood Scrubs prison during this case but was released in 1961, mainly due to the efforts of Beth Eldridge. Her sister Mary Eldridge wrote a book “Beyond Belief” about Denys Bower that is on sale in the Castle today.
The Eldridge sisters took pity on the bankrupt ex-convict and helped him restore Chiddingstone Castle. On his death in 1977 he left the Castle to the National Trust (who owned Chiddingstone Village) but they refused the bequest and instead it was inherited by a private trust. After a long period of renovation through the 1980’s the Castle gradually became more of a going concern and in June 1995 became licensed by the Kent County Council for civil marriage ceremonies.
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