Horace Walpole and Strawberry Hill

Horace Walpole was the son of Britain’s first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole. He devoted his life to politics, the arts, antiquarianism, history, collecting and authorship and, from 1749, the creation of Strawberry Hill, his summer villa. The most significant building of the early Gothic revival, it was a place of the imagination, that inspired Walpole to write The Castle of Otranto , the first Gothic novel. Outside, it was designed to look like an ancient castle, the ancestral seat of the Walpoles. Its interiors formed a dramatic mood journey composed of changing colour harmonies and darkness and light, the rooms filled with a huge collection of art and antiquities. This talk will explore Walpole’s greatest creative achievement, and how it was the clearest manifestation of his personality, interests and place in the world.

Michael Snodin is an architectural and design historian. He is chair of the Strawberry Hill Collection Trust and was previously chair of the Strawberry Hill Trust and Head of Designs and a Senior Research Fellow at the Victoria and Albert Museum. His publications include Design and the Decorative Arts: Britain 1500-1900 (V&A 2001) and Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill (Yale 2009).