This was the weekend of London Open House, where you can get into lots of buildings for free. There were plenty of places I wanted to see, but the difficulty was finding somewhere that Paul wanted to see as well. Eventually, we agreed on Strawberry Hill, the house created between 1748 and 1790 by Horace Walpole as his 'summer villa'. Horace Walpole was a politician, writer and collector, the younger son of Sir Robert Walpole, the British Prime Minister. (In July, we visited Houghton Hall, the house Sir Robert built in Norfolk). Horace Walpole was well known also for writing 'The Castle of Otranto', an early English Gothic novel.
Horace Walpole bought an existing house, close to the Thames near Twickenham. The original owner had been a coachman and the house was known locally as 'Chopped Straw Hall', the implication being that the coachman had built it from the proceeds of feeding his employer's horses chopped straw while charging them for best quality hay. Walpole found an old lease that described his land as 'Strawberry Hill Shot' and adopted this new name for what would soon become his elegant villa.
In stages, he rebuilt the house to his own specifications, giving it a Gothic style and expanding the property to 46 acres over the years. It has been described as 'the first house without any existing medieval fabric to be built from scratch in the Gothic style' and it is usually regarded as the starting point of the Gothic Revival, and established a style now known as 'Strawberry Hill Gothic'. Walpole himself often described it as his 'little Gothic castle'. It is certainly stunning, especially since it is so startlingly white. The photograph below is one from the web, it's far better than any of my photos.
It being Open House weekend when entry to everything is free, we had to queue to get in, but not for very long.
The Hall is gloomy, hung with grey trompe l'oeil Gothic wallpaper supposed to look like stone, and the balustrades are painted grey too, and ornamented with heraldic antelopes. The whole place is highly theatrical, and everything has been created for a dramatic effect - like the fireplace below.
This is the fireplace in the Great Parlour, which was Walpole's dining room. It also had some quite dramatic stained glass windows. There were stained glass windows all over the house, some containing real medieval stained glass, (some things in the house are 'real' and not theatrical props) but stained glass is rather difficult to photograph, so you won't see much in my photos.
There's another amazing fireplace in the blue bed-chamber, in fact there are amazing fireplaces in most of the rooms, but I don't want to fill this post entirely with fireplaces. Having said that, here's another; this is the one from the Holbein Room, a room originally used to display Walpole's collection of copies of Holbein drawings.
This particular one is copied mostly from the tomb of Archbishop Warham in Westminster Abbey, and the ceiling is coped from the Queen's dressing room at Windsor! It's so over the top I find it hard to describe this room, the back part of which is behind a screen of carved and pierced wood, painted to resemble stone. I just couldn't get far enough away from it to take a photo.
The room which really takes your breath away is the Gallery, of which Walpole once said 'I begin to be ashamed of my own magnificence'.
The ceiling is copied from one of the side aisles of the Henry 7th chapel in Westminster Abbey. (Only the very best was used for copies!) This ceiling isn't made of plaster as you might suppose, but papier mâché. The walls have been re-hung in crimson damask, as they were originally, and Walpole's own descriptions have been used to determine where the reproductions of the paintings should be hung.
The Library is also pretty amazing, as the books are confined within Gothic arches.
The arches are carved and pierced wood, again painted to look like stone. There is another striking stained glass window in this room, but your eye is immediately drawn to the ceiling.
The ceiling was painted to Walpole's design, with his own heraldic shield, surrounded by the quarters belonging to his family; it's near the top of my photo. I preferred the knights on horseback; there's one at each end of the ceiling.
Another room which was hard to photograph was the Tribune, or treasure room, where Walpole kept some of his most valuable possessions, and where only his most favoured guests were allowed to enter. It is small and square with semi-circular recesses and niches, and the only light comes from the 'skylight' in the centre.
The lack of light is supposed to give a solemn air, Walpole intended it to look like a rich chapel, which it certainly does.
I was particularly taken with the Great North Bedchamber because it was so light and bright. It is hung with red silk, and has another magnificent fireplace.
One of the other reasons I found the room so appealing was the dressing up costumes for children. A couple of little girls were trying on various dresses of the time, and looked charming.
I have to apologise for the next photo, it's of another room which is impossible to photograph, this time because it's circular as well as being dark. It's called the Round Drawing Room, and is one of the State Rooms used by Walpole for entertaining Royalty, statesmen and foreign dignitaries.
The only light is from that stained glass window at the back, and the lights placed round the room, and it needs light because, as you can see, it's another room hung with crimson damask. The ceiling is copied from a round window in St Paul's. The fireplace, which I have spared you, is a design taken from the tomb of Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey - only the best...
The grounds outside no longer extend for 46 acres, but there is a garden, part of which is to be restored to Walpole's design. There is a chapel nearby which sounded quite interesting, but it belongs to St Mary's University College, which owns a lot of the adjoining buildings. There was a wedding there, with the garden being full of wedding guests, so we couldn't really get close enough to see where it was
The house was a really amazing place, so I'm very glad we went, I've always wanted to go. It was closed for years, and I hadn't realised it was open again, otherwise we might have gone elsewhere. I usually prefer to keep Open House visits for those places you can't normally get into.
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