Horace Walpole's little gothic castle of Strawberry Hill at Twickenham is a jewel in the suburbs of west London. It was the passion of Walpole, collector, author, dilettante and the youngest son of Britain's first prime minister, who turned it into the most important and influential building of the early gothic revival. Walpole assembled a large collection of over 450 pieces of stained glass at Strawberry Hill, insipiring a craze among his contemporaries for the setting of ancient glass as a fashionable addition to a home. An early description of the house said that it had the sparkle of 'a harlequin's coat chequered with all the colours of the rainbow'. Walpole included heraldic blazons and decorative roundels as well as new commissions from English Glaziers such as William Price the Younger and William Peckitt, who were reviving what was considered at that time a lost art. This eclectic collection of stained glass is currently being extensively renovated and reset in accordance with Walpole's original intentions, as part of the Strawberry Hill restoration project. AUTHOR: Dr Michael Peover is Glass Consultant at Strawberry Hill and former Librarian of the British Society of Master Glass Painters. 50 colour illustrations
