Reinterpreting Horace Walpole’s Little Gothic Castle: Strawberry Hill

Horace Walpole’s Georgian Gothic villa, Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, has been held up as the most important example of the early Gothic Revival in Britain. The villa has been understood in terms of its executed form and fixtures—and its collection that was dispersed by the 1842 auction—and whilst undoubtedly important, there is an even more interesting context from which this Gothic house emerged. A wealth of unexecuted designs for the house’s exterior architecture, interior plans, decoration, and furniture reveal until now untold complexities about Strawberry Hill that contextualise the design choices made by Walpole and his ‘Strawberry Committee’. These unexecuted designs highlight unacknowledged influences upon the house’s designers and how Walpole reshaped the ‘Strawberry Hill narrative’.

Peter Lindfield is a lecturer in the country house and history at Manchester Metropolitan University. He is a former Leverhulme ECR Fellow. His book Unbuilt Strawberry Hill: Designs for Horace Walpole’s Gothic Villa is due to be published in 2022.

The talks starts at 6.30pm. Joining details will be sent to attendees the day before.