Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, England

The following is from the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest: 

The remains of Horace Walpole's 18th century landscape garden.

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The 3 hectare triangular site is surrounded by residential development and bounded to the west by Waldegrave Road (A309) and to the east by a footpath to the rear of Strawberry Vale and Michelham Gardens. These houses, built on Walpole's Thames-side meadows, have effectively blocked the views to the Thames, Twickenham, and Richmond Hill which were once important as the setting for Walpole's garden. Playing fields and halls of residence, part of the college, provide the south boundary.

Strawberry Hill stands on level ground, with a slight slope down to the north-east in the direction of the River Thames.

REFERENCES used by English Heritage:

H Walpole, A Description of the Villa (1784)

Architectural Review, (September 1957), pp 157-159

B Cherry and N Pevsner, The Buildings of England: London 2 South (1983), pp 543-550

Blest Retreats, A history of private gardens in Richmond upon Thames, (Richmond upon Thames Library and Information Services 1984), pp 19-20

M Batey et al, Arcadian Thames: the river landscape from Hampton to Kew (1994), pp 59-64

J Idden, Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill (1996)

A Chalcraft, A Paper House (1998)

Maps

J Rocque, Plan of the Cities of London and Westminster and Borough of Southwark and the country near ten miles around, surveyed 1741-1745, published 1746

Plan of the estate, 1791 (reproduced in Idden 1996)

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1863

2nd edition published 1896

1934 edition

Illustrations

A number of illustrations are published in John Idden's guide to Strawberry Hill (1996); these include:

Samuel Own, The View of Strawberry Hill

William Pars, Strawberry Hill from the Garden, 1780

Description written: June 1997

Amended: October 2001

Edited: November 2001