Strawberry Hill Castle

Strawberry Hill Castle, Greater London Photo © Colin Smith, 22 February 2009

Strawberry Hill Castle, Greater London .

Victorian Gothic castle on Waldegrave Road, built for Horace Walpole and undergoing restoration.

Walpole's villa

Walpole and two friends, including the connoisseur and amateur architect, John Chute (1701–1776), and draftsman, Richard Bentley (1708–1782), called themselves a “Committee of Taste” which would modify the architecture of the building. Bentley left the group abruptly after an argument in 1761. William Robinson of the Royal Office of Works contributed professional experience in overseeing construction. They looked at many examples of architecture in England and in other countries, adapting such works as the chapel at Westminster Abbey built by Henry VII for inspiration for the fan vaulting of the gallery, without any pretense at scholarship. Chimney-pieces were improvised from engravings of tombs at Westminster and Canterbury and Gothic stone fretwork blind details were reproduced by painted wallpapers, while in the Round Tower added in 1771, the chimney-piece was based on the tomb of Edward the Confessor "improved by Mr. Adam".

He incorporated many of the exterior details of cathedrals into the interior of the house. Externally there seemed to be two predominant styles ‘mixed’; a style based on castles with turrets and battlements, and a style based on Gothic cathedrals with arched windows and stained glass.

The building evolved similarly to how a medieval cathedral often evolved over time, with no fixed plan from the beginning. Walpole added new features over a thirty-year period, as he saw fit.

The first stage to make, in Walpole's words, a ‘little Gothic castle’ began in 1749 and was complete by 1753, a second stage began in 1760, and there were other modifications such as work on the great north bedchamber in 1772, and the "Beauclerk Tower" of the third phase of alterations, completed to designs of a professional architect, James Essex, in 1776.

Walpole's 'little Gothic castle' has significance as one of the most influential individual buildings of such Rococo "Gothick" architecture which prefixed the later developments of the nineteenth century Gothic revival, and for increasing the use of Gothic designs for houses. This style has variously been described as Georgian Gothic, Strawberry Hill Gothic, Georgian Rococo, or Gothick

In 2004, Strawberry Hill featured in the BBC/Endemol TV series Restoration, presented by Griff Rhys Jones, Ptolemy Dean and Marianne Suhr, produced and directed by Paul Coueslant.

The history of Strawberry Hill Castle

Engraving from Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole, 1784

Engraving from Description of the Villa of Mr. Horace Walpole, 1784

"Where the Gothic Castle now stands, was originally a small tenement, built in 1698, and let as a lodging-house; Cibber once took it, and wrote one of his plays here, The Refusal; or, The Lady's Philosophy. After him, Talbot, Bishop of Durham, had it for eight years; then Henry Bridges, Marquis of Carnarvon, son of James Duke of Chandos, and since Duke himself. It was next hired by Mrs. Chevenix, the noted toy-woman; who, on the death of her husband, let it to Lord Philip Sackville, second son of Lionel, Duke of Dorset; he kept it about two years, and then Mr. Walpole took the remainder of Mrs. Chevenix's lease in May 1747, and the next year bought it by act of Parliament: it being the property of three minors of the name of Mortimer. Along with this house and some other tenements was another small one, then occupied by Richard Francklin, printer of The Crattelman, who had been taken up for printing that paper during the administration of Sir Robert Walpole. When Mr. Walpole bought Strawberry Hill, there were but five acres belonging to the house: the rest have been purchased since. The Castle now existing was not entirely built from the ground, but formed at different times, by alterations of, and additions to the old small house. The library and refectory, or great parlour, were entirely new in 1753; the gallery, round tower, great cloister, and cabinet, in 1760 and 1761; the great North bedchamber in 1770; and the Beauclerc tower, with the hexagon closet, in 1776.

Reference

The European magazine, and London review 1797