Strawberry Hill, London

Strawberry Hill (German Strawberry Hill ) is a castle-like country house that the writer and politician Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, had built up in 1776 on the River Thames near Twickenham ( London) in 1749. The building was a model for a large number of similar villas and castles in Europe, and gave impetus to the Gothic Revival ( Neo-Gothic ) called revival of Gothic architecture.

1748 Horace Walpole had bought a small villa on the River Thames and was thinking to rebuild it in his "little Gothic castle". From 1749 it was expanded in several stages. Walpole had this with two friends, John Chute and Richard Bentley, founded the " Committee of Taste". Bentley left the " Committee " in 1761 after an argument. William Robinson of the Royal Office of Works was responsible for the professional supervision.

Architectural models were different homes in England and other countries from the Gothic period. A built under Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey was the model for a cross-ribbed vaulting above the gallery, but also details of tombs in Westminster and Canterbury could be integrated in a modified form in the construction. Exterior forms of cathedrals used Walpole inside his house, outside the building was a mixture of castle with battlements and turrets and Gothic church with lancet windows.

The first phase of construction was begun in 1749 and completed in 1753, the second began in 1760. From 1772 to 1776 further changes and additions have been made as the Beauclerk Tower. This was according to the plans of a professional architect James Essex, completed.

The year 1776 is considered in the history of art also usually as the dividing line between "gothic survival" and "gothic revival ", ie Nachgotik and Gothic Revival.

Strawberry Hill was also the model for The Castle of Otranto ( The Castle of Otranto ) 1764 Walpole's first published novel under a pseudonym, with whom he founded the literary genre of "Gothic Novel ". Since the architecture of the venue played a significant role in every gothic novel. Stairs, galleries, hidden rooms, vaults and dungeons were connected in the following period with this in the romance genre very well maintained. But while Walpole's literature was ultimately connected yet to be reported, the irrational occurs in later literary works of this genre again to the fore.

Strawberry Hill is now a foundation and can be visited. As life site of Horace Walpole 's Castle also a literary memorial of the first rank, comparable to Abbotsford, a palatial residence of the Scottish writer Walter Scott.