In 2007, the College leased the property to the Strawberry Hill Trust and renovation work began. In 1923, the property was bought to house what is now St Mary’s University College. In 1842, he took his revenge on Twickenham by auctioning off all Walpole’s collections and leaving the house empty to decay.Īfter George’s death, his widow, Frances, restored and lived at Strawberry Hill. Two generations later, Lady Elizabeth’s grandson, George, 7th Earl Waldegrave, was sent to prison for riotous behaviour, and he blamed the Twickenham justice system for convicting him.

Maria was the illegitimate daughter of Walpole's brother Edward.

Lady Elizabeth was the eldest daughter of Maria, Countess Waldegrave, later Duchess of Gloucester, by her first marriage. The house then passed to Walpole’s great niece, Lady Elizabeth Waldegrave, widow of the 4th Earl Waldegrave. She lived there until 1811 when she gave the house up because she found it too expensive to maintain. On Walpole’s death in 1797, Strawberry Hill passed to his cousin, the sculptor Mrs Anne Seymour Damer, for life.

His aim was to create a route through his house where the visitor was constantly surprised, with gloomy areas leading into bright open spaces. Internally, he added chimney places and bookcases, stained glass windows and intricate ceiling and wall designs. He clad the outside of the original buildings and added battlements and pinnacles. With the help of a committee of friends including John Chute, an architect and the owner of The Vyne in Hampshire, and Richard Bentley, an illustrator, Walpole designed his fairytale castle. Walpole delighted in their lack of symmetry and used them as the core of his new house. The original property consisted of two buildings joined together. He bought the property in 1749 and embarked on an ambitious building project to transform Strawberry Hill into a model of Gothic architecture. Known locally as Chopped Straw Hall, Walpole renamed it Strawberry Hill after discovering a reference to the name in an old lease. In 1747, Horace Walpole took out a lease on a house in Twickenham, not far from the River Thames.

The castle of horace walpole