discoverbritainmag.com 59DISCOVER LONDONAfter an £8.9-million renovation a decade ago, visitors
today can still rejoice in Walpole’s unparalleled home,
which set the stage for the Victorian gothic revival, much
as the tourists in his own lifetime did. Indeed, he opened
it up as a ticketed attraction from May until October,
groaning that, “Two companies have been to see my
house last week and one of the parties, as vulgar people
always see with the ends of their fingers, had broken the
end of my invaluable eagle’s bill, and to conceal their
mischief, had pocketed the piece.”
Any ideally not light-fingered visitor who makes the
pilgrimage to Walpole’s castellated palace today, with
its gleaming white stucco, will note the inspiration from
earlier gothic designs that Walpole had visited on his
Grand Tour of France and Italy, a standard rite of
passage for wealthy young British men of the time.
The careful construction of dark passages opening
up into bright, gilded rooms adds to the drama in
a similar fashion to St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
So, while Walpole was the virtuoso connoisseur
behind it all, the ever-unfolding vision was far from his
alone. Quite aside from the architects, he also called upon
his self-appointed “Committee of Taste”, consisting of
every man of discernment and sophistication he knew:
from scholars to squires, including John Chute, the man
behind The Vyne in Hampshire, a vast country pile now
ANDREAS VON EINSIEDEL/ALAMY/KILIAN O’SULLIVAN/VIEW PICTURES LTDrun by the National Trust. ➤ ➤This image: Walpole’s
white stucco palace was
inspired by Grand Tours
of France and Italy
Above: The gothic
styling continues inside056-060_DB_Strawberry Hill_AprMay20.indd 59 26/02/2020 12:15After an £8.9-million renovation a decade ago, visitors
today can still rejoice in Walpole’s unparalleled home,
which set the stage for the Victorian gothic revival, much
as the tourists in his own lifetime did. Indeed, he opened
it up as a ticketed attraction from May until October,
groaning that, “Two companies have been to see my
house last week and one of the parties, as vulgar people
always see with the ends of their fingers, had broken the
end of my invaluable eagle’s bill, and to conceal their
mischief, had pocketed the piece.”
Any ideally not light-fingered visitor who makes the
pilgrimage to Walpole’s castellated palace today, with
its gleaming white stucco, will note the inspiration from
earlier gothic designs that Walpole had visited on his
Grand Tour of France and Italy, a standard rite of
passage for wealthy young British men of the time.
The careful construction of dark passages opening
up into bright, gilded rooms adds to the drama in
a similar fashion to St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
So, while Walpole was the virtuoso connoisseur
behind it all, the ever-unfolding vision was far from his
alone. Quite aside from the architects, he also called upon
his self-appointed “Committee of Taste”, consisting of
every man of discernment and sophistication he knew:
from scholars to squires, including John Chute, the man
behind The Vyne in Hampshire, a vast country pile now
ANDREAS VON EINSIEDEL/ALAMY/KILIAN O’SULLIVAN/VIEW PICTURES LTDrun by the National Trust. ➤
This image: Walpole’s
white stucco palace was
inspired by Grand Tours
of France and Italy
Above: The gothic
styling continues inside