Probus October Meeting 2010
Restoration of Strawberry Hill House - Talk by Anne Chalcraft
Strawberry Hill was one of the most famous houses in 18th century Georgian England but over successive centuries fell into considerable disrepair. Originally a small house built in 1698, Horace Walpole rented it in 1747 when Twickenham had become fashionable. Although his intention was to recreate a house of an earlier period, Walpole declared he was going to build "a little Gothic castle". When he died in 1797 the property passed to his cousin's unmarried daughter and then to the Waldegrave family.
In 1842 the house contents were sold off to satisfy debts and later a banking family bought it. Further sales followed until 1923 when St Mary's College transferred from Hammersmith to the 43 acre Strawberry Hill estate.
For many years, although Grade 1 listed, Strawberry Hill was an endangered building. In 2007 the house was leased to the Strawberry Hill Trust and with financial support from different commercial sources and the Heritage Lottery Fund, £9 million was raised to repair and restore Walpole's villa.
Horace Walpole became an MP in 1743. He received an income from his father, prime minister Sir Robert Walpole, which amply supported his life as a writer of gothic novels and a collector of antiquities and an art connoisseur. He collected many objects in addition to building a library of books, maps and prints. This collection was housed in a building, Strawberry Hill, which was greatly enlarged by incorporating architectural features built to his own specifications which were based on medieval gothic cathedrals and tombs.
Some of the ceilings were fan-vaulted with gothic motifs, continued in fire-pieces and furniture. But the design was both aesthetic and practical: the window and shutters in a room overlooking the garden could be slid back into the wall, an idea employed nearly two centuries later by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.
Walls hung with grey-painted wallpaper created the gothic gloom of some rooms, staircase and corridors, but several rooms had Renaissance stained glass windows, one of which in the library, was from Westminster Abbey. These would light up the room when sunlight projected their colours.
However, the Gallery has always been brilliantly coloured with the walls hung with crimson damask and the ceiling gilded and the Holbein Chamber - evoking the court of Henry VIII - had purple coloured walls. Walpole gave personal tours to his friends and social acquaintances but tickets could also be acquired to visit the house and a guidebook was produced on a printing press installed in the house in 1757.
The house is now open again to the public following its restoration. Where possible original materials were used, for example York stone flags in the cloister, but other parts such as the Round Tower have had to be rebuilt despite earlier attempts at restoration. The whole of the exterior is now painted the original bright white bringing back the villa's description of white as a swan’s feathers.
Over past years many rooms were redecorated - the staircase walls were pink - and this paint has now been removed to expose the underlying original colour. Walpole had a great interest in paints which, as new colours became available, he would obtain to test both for suitability and durability.
In the Beauty (Discovery) Room it is possible to see how changes have been made over three centuries starting with original 17th century wooden panelling and culminating in 20th century anaglypta ceiling paper! Some of the interior walls have been recovered with grey wallpaper that has been hand-made in small sheets and painted in Ireland.
Particular skill has been applied to restoration of the vaulted ceilings which were moulded from papier-mâché made using fabric (possibly from 18th century sailcloth carried as ballast by ships returning from the North American colonies). The new ceiling mouldings have been gilded with 23-carat gold leaf. The Round Room designed by Robert Adam has taken three years to restore and this was made possible by a generous donation from patrons.
Original furniture would be prohibitively expensive to buy and replica sofas in the Great Parlour will be made by students from London Metropolitan University. Sadly, few original, antiquarian items are available but the Lewis Walpole Library Digital Collection at Yale University has acquired an ever increasing number of images including prints, drawings and watercolours relating to Horace Walpole's collection.
Paul Kershaw, who complimented Mrs Chalcraft on her excellent informative and enjoyable talk, gave the vote of thanks. It is clear, thanks to the Trust, that Strawberry Hill is in good hands and the proposed Young Friends Group is an investment in the future. An attractive innovation is the new café in the cloister overlooking the newly planted garden.