Strawberry Hill House
The Gothic revival of Strawberry Hill
Strawberry Hill House, home of Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford and writer of The Castle of Otranto, is a villa theatrically dressed in the Gothic style. Built in Twickenham around 1749, its design coined the phrase ‘Strawberry Gothic’ and is a benchmark of the Gothic Revival movement.
Having fallen into extreme disrepair, the house had been on the Heritage at Risk Register since 1991. A restoration programme was made possible by a £4.9m grant from the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund and over £1.5m from the World Monuments Fund. Mann Williams was engaged as Civil and Structural Engineers for the project.
Our work included structural appraisals of the building and its fabric, resulting in repair details for major structures and minor artefacts.
Project Lead
Project Team
- Location Twickenham, London
- Client Strawberry Hill Trust
- Completion 2014
- Value £9m
Delicate details
Re-servicing the villa required delicate work details to protect its fabric. We worked closely with the architects to ensure the structure and detailing of the building were sympathetically repaired.
The icing on the cake
Carved oak pinnacles that were lost in high winds were reinstated along with castellated parapets, all to their original proportions. The old exterior cementitious render was removed and replaced with new lime ‘harling’ to restore Strawberry Hill House to its original ‘wedding cake’ appearance.
Saving the Great Tower
In the course of the works, the Great Tower was found to be badly damaged. It was carefully dismantled and repaired on site using traditional English carpentry techniques to keep the original frame wherever possible.
Awards
2011 - Georgian Group Award for the Best Restoration of an 18th Century Country House
2012 - Runners up for the RICS London Award for Conservation
2013 - Europa Nostra Award
A word from the Project Lead