Strawberry Hill Garden

Horace Walpole's house, with a wing added in the nineteenth century. The garden space is interesting mainly for its view of the house which belonged to the author of the most influential and entertaining essay On Modern Gardening. By a mile, this is the most brilliant and most influential essay ever written on English garden history. For two centuries it mapped the whole landscape of the subject. But the essay is profoundly misleading, with its last words being the most misleading: 'With pleasure therefore I resign my pen; presuming to recommend nothing to my successor, but to observe as strict impartiality'. The architectural style is known as 'Strawberry Hill Gothic'.

Head Gardener's Comment

Strawberry Hill is significant in its own right as an outstanding historic landscape and also as a setting for the Grade I listed house. The site is listed as Grade II* on the English Heritage Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest and is therefore considered to be of national importance and exceptional interest. Historic importance is also recognised in its status as Metropolitan Open Land in the Richmond Borough Council Unitary Development Plan (UDP).

Strawberry Hill is one of the most significant surviving villas along the Thames, and a property of outstanding importance. It is considered one of the most important monuments of eighteenth century architecture and landscape design. In terms of its landscape, although the water meadows that separated the gardens from the Thames have now been developed, the core of the gardens remains intact. The development of the gardens started at the time Horace Walpole acquired Strawberry Hill in 1747 and continued until his death in 1797. Further additions to the gardens were made during the 19th century, most notably during the occupation by Lady Waldegrave, but it is Walpole’s intervention that provides the greatest significance and interest.