60 discoverbritainmag.comDISCOVER LONDONSAM MELLISH/IN PICTURES/GET T Y IMAGESTogether Walpole and his committee hit upon flourishes
that are as extraordinary now as they were then. Richard
Bentley, a writer, designer and Master of Trinity College,
Cambridge, designed a staircase hall made loosely
in the image of Prince Arthur’s tomb. The library’s
gothic bookcases owe much to a pair of side doors at
St Paul’s Cathedral, London.
The Holbein Chamber was a bedchamber created in
recognition of Walpole’s fascination with Tudor history
and art. It not only houses his collection of copies of the
titular artist’s drawings (the originals being at Kensington
Palace), but is architecturally fascinating. There is a
carved wooden screen, based upon the choir doors of a
church in Rouen, a chimney that references a tomb in
Canterbury Cathedral, and a domed ceiling inspired by
the Queen’s Dressing Room at Windsor Castle. Despite
being such a typically eclectic showpiece, Walpole neverslept in the Holbein Chamber, although he was said
to sometimes take his tea here.
While plundering the medieval, Walpole remained
self-aware at all times, writing: “Visions you know
have always been my pasture... Old castles, old pictures,
old histories and the babble of old people make one
live back into centuries that cannot disappoint one.”
Scrupulously honest, he admitted, “In truth I do not
mean to make my house so gothic as to exclude
convenience and modern refinements in luxury.”
Walpole’s Grand Tour proved of lasting importance
through his life for another reason. For it was during this
time that he met the Florentine expat and British diplomat
Thomas Mann, with whom he started his most prolific
and important correspondence. They maintained contact
for 45 years, although the two were never to meet again.
His letters – both to Mann and others – amount to a vital
historical document, not least because, in consciously
cultivating the art of letter writing, Walpole kept one
eye firmly on posterity, detailing the history, manners,
and taste of his age.
To delve into Georgian culture, one must only look to
his 48 volumes of letters for gossipy takes on all the news
and leading figures in society, often delivered from the
sidelines of fashionable parties. Not only did Walpole
leave his indelible mark on Strawberry Hill and gothicliterature, but he also shaped the way we see
18th-century social and political history. Neither was
he all frivolity; Walpole was ardently opposed to the
slave trade, about which he corresponded with the
campaigner Hannah More, predicting the future
disasters of colonialism and Empire.
Walpole remained a confirmed bachelor until his end,
preferring the company of older ladies and disgraced
noblewomen, in addition to his abiding male friendships.
(Biographers, pondering his sexuality, have typically
concluded that he was most likely asexual.)
Upon his death, then, Strawberry Hill passed to his
cousin, Anne Seymour Damer, before having a series of
fittingly eccentric owners and eventually being restored
and opened to public. It is a fate that befits what was the
most famous house in Georgian England, which fuelled
a fashion for medievalism.
There are, of course, architectural historians and
detractors for whom Strawberry Hill will always be a
sham (Augustus Pugin among them) and a Frankenstein’s
monster of borrowed, non-cohesive influences and
aesthetics. It will, however, always stand testament to
the imagination of the man. That he wrote, following
his period abroad, “the most remarkable thing I have
observed since I came abroad, is, that there are no people
so obviously mad as the English,” was perhaps prophetic.
And gloriously so. nIt is as the creative mastermind
of Strawberry Hill that Horace
Walpole is best remembered
Above: Strawberry
Hill House’s dark
passageways
contrast with
bright,gilded rooms056-060_DB_Strawberry Hill_AprMay20.indd 60 26/02/2020 12:1560 discoverbritainmag.com
SAM MELLISH/IN PICTURES/GET T Y IMAGESTogether Walpole and his committee hit upon flourishes
that are as extraordinary now as they were then. Richard
Bentley, a writer, designer and Master of Trinity College,
Cambridge, designed a staircase hall made loosely
in the image of Prince Arthur’s tomb. The library’s
gothic bookcases owe much to a pair of side doors at
St Paul’s Cathedral, London.
The Holbein Chamber was a bedchamber created in
recognition of Walpole’s fascination with Tudor history
and art. It not only houses his collection of copies of the
titular artist’s drawings (the originals being at Kensington
Palace), but is architecturally fascinating. There is a
carved wooden screen, based upon the choir doors of a
church in Rouen, a chimney that references a tomb in
Canterbury Cathedral, and a domed ceiling inspired by
the Queen’s Dressing Room at Windsor Castle. Despite
being such a typically eclectic showpiece, Walpole neverslept in the Holbein Chamber, although he was said
to sometimes take his tea here.
While plundering the medieval, Walpole remained
self-aware at all times, writing: “Visions you know
have always been my pasture... Old castles, old pictures,
old histories and the babble of old people make one
live back into centuries that cannot disappoint one.”
Scrupulously honest, he admitted, “In truth I do not
mean to make my house so gothic as to exclude
convenience and modern refinements in luxury.”
Walpole’s Grand Tour proved of lasting importance
through his life for another reason. For it was during this
time that he met the Florentine expat and British diplomat
Thomas Mann, with whom he started his most prolific
and important correspondence. They maintained contact
for 45 years, although the two were never to meet again.
His letters – both to Mann and others – amount to a vital
historical document, not least because, in consciously
cultivating the art of letter writing, Walpole kept one
eye firmly on posterity, detailing the history, manners,
and taste of his age.
To delve into Georgian culture, one must only look to
his 48 volumes of letters for gossipy takes on all the news
and leading figures in society, often delivered from the
sidelines of fashionable parties. Not only did Walpole
leave his indelible mark on Strawberry Hill and gothicliterature, but he also shaped the way we see
18th-century social and political history. Neither was
he all frivolity; Walpole was ardently opposed to the
slave trade, about which he corresponded with the
campaigner Hannah More, predicting the future
disasters of colonialism and Empire.
Walpole remained a confirmed bachelor until his end,
preferring the company of older ladies and disgraced
noblewomen, in addition to his abiding male friendships.
(Biographers, pondering his sexuality, have typically
concluded that he was most likely asexual.)
Upon his death, then, Strawberry Hill passed to his
cousin, Anne Seymour Damer, before having a series of
fittingly eccentric owners and eventually being restored
and opened to public. It is a fate that befits what was the
most famous house in Georgian England, which fuelled
a fashion for medievalism.
There are, of course, architectural historians and
detractors for whom Strawberry Hill will always be a
sham (Augustus Pugin among them) and a Frankenstein’s
monster of borrowed, non-cohesive influences and
aesthetics. It will, however, always stand testament to
the imagination of the man. That he wrote, following
his period abroad, “the most remarkable thing I have
observed since I came abroad, is, that there are no people
so obviously mad as the English,” was perhaps prophetic.
And gloriously so.nIt is as the creative mastermind
of Strawberry Hill that Horace
Walpole is best remembered
Above: Strawberry
Hill House’s dark
passageways
contrast with
bright,gilded rooms