Strawberry Hill House

Strawberry Hill House is a Gothic Revival villa located in Twickenham, within the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, United Kingdom. Built by the writer and politician Horace Walpole beginning in 1749, it is the prototypical example of the Strawberry Hill Gothic style and prefigured the nineteenth century Gothic Revival. As the first house built from scratch in the Gothic style without any existing medieval fabric, and the first based on actual historic examples rather than earlier extrapolations, it marks the starting point of the Gothic Revival movement. The house and its collections also served as the inspiration for Walpole's 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, which founded the Gothic literary genre.

In May 1747, Horace Walpole took a lease on a small 17th century house, then nicknamed Chopped Straw Hall, with five acres of land. Driven by familial and political pressure to establish a fashionable country seat, he purchased the property the following year and renamed it Strawberry Hill after finding the term on an old lease. Over time, he expanded the estate to 46 acres. Walpole rebuilt the house in stages starting in 1749, 1760, 1772, and 1776, working without a fixed plan and adding features as he saw fit. After Walpole's death in 1797, the house passed to his cousin's daughter, Anne Seymour Damer, and later to John Waldegrave and his descendants. By 1842, the Waldegrave family had spent much of their fortune, leading to a twenty four day auction of the house's entire contents. The estate was acquired in 1883 by the German born banker Baron Hermann de Stern. In 1923, St Mary's University College purchased the property, using it as a teacher training facility, though this led to moisture and rust damage over time. By 2004, the building's perilous state landed it on the World Monuments Fund watch list. In 2007, the college leased the house long term to the Strawberry Hill Trust, which undertook a faithful restoration, earning the Grand Prix of the Europa Nostra Prize in Conservation in 2013.

The interiors of Strawberry Hill were conceived as settings of Gothic gloomth, specifically tailored to house Walpole's vast collection of antiquarian objects, art, and curiosities. Numbering several thousand items, the collection constituted an essential part of the interior design, with the character of the rooms created and dictated by Walpole's taste for antiquarianism. Walpole publicized his holdings by publishing two editions of A Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole at Strawberry Hill. Although the collection was dispersed in the 1842 auction, the Lewis Walpole Library at Yale University now maintains a comprehensive database of Walpole's artifacts, encompassing all items whose current locations are known as well as those traced through historical documents. Even without the original collection present, the house retains a fairy tale quality.

While the original collection was famously dispersed, the house itself retains notable architectural and decorative features integral to its design. The interior includes a series of red rooms, most notably the great gallery, which features walls hung with red damask and a ceiling decorated with Gothic scroll and fan designs. Other significant spaces include the refectory with its grand fireplace and the tea room. The breakfast room features a mantelpiece and oriel window designed by William Robinson of the Royal Office of Works. One intentionally grand fireplace was designed by Robert Adam, based on the tomb of Edward the Confessor, while other fireplace pieces were improvised from engravings of tombs at Westminster and Canterbury. The house also features enamelled door handles, carved wooden screens, and ancestral looking coats of arms of men Walpole pretended were his medieval ancestors. In the garden, a large seat shaped like a Rococo sea shell was recreated during the 2012 garden restoration.

Strawberry Hill evolved organically over three decades, much like a medieval cathedral, resulting in an irregular plan and a broken picturesque silhouette. Walpole and his Committee of Taste, consisting of connoisseur John Chute and draughtsman Richard Bentley, designed the house by adapting real historic examples, such as the fan vaulting in the gallery modeled on Henry VII's chapel at Westminster Abbey. Chute handled most of the exterior and some interior design, while Bentley provided illustrations until his departure in 1761 following an argument. William Robinson provided professional construction supervision. Externally, the building mixed two predominant styles, combining a castle aesthetic with turrets and battlements, and a cathedral aesthetic with pointed arch windows and stained glass. The construction occurred in stages, with the first phase completed in 1753, a second beginning in 1760, and the Beauclerk Tower of the third phase completed in 1776 to the designs of professional architect James Essex. The total cost was roughly 20,720 pounds. The gardens were designed in a natural layout, departing from formal symmetry, with trees and shrubs planted in natural groups on the lawn to contrast with the melancholy interiors.

Strawberry Hill House is located in Twickenham, London, and operates as a house museum. Following extensive renovations by the Strawberry Hill Trust, which removed later institutional additions and repaired damage, the building is now open to the public for visitation. The gardens have also been restored in accordance with Walpole's original vision. Beyond its architectural significance, the site serves as a primary literary memorial to Horace Walpole, comparable to Walter Scott's Abbotsford. Further information regarding access and visiting hours is available on the official Strawberry Hill House website.