Strawberry Hill is Britain's finest example of Georgian Gothic Revival architecture and interior decoration. It began life in 1698 as a modest house, built by the coachmen of the Earl of Bradford. It was transformed into 'a little Gothic castle' by Horace Walpole, man of letters and the son of England's first Prime Minister. Between 1747 and 1792 Walpole doubled its size, creating Gothic rooms and adding towers and battlements in fulfilment of his dream. Further additions were made by the Countess Waldegrave in the 19th Century.
Strawberry Hill was already a famous tourist site in its own day. It has miraculously survived into ours, its rural surroundings gone, but its charm undiminished. The plaything of Walpole and his friends, it established a taste for the Gothic: fireplaces and gilded ceilings like medieval tombs and vaults, painted glass with rustic and biblical scenes and heraldry.
