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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



June, 



STRAWBERRY HILL. 



CTVtth an Engraving, Plate FIJ.) 



After being forgotten, except as recalled to recollection by the 

 reproachfully proverbial term of " Strawberry Hill Gothic," the resi- 

 dence of Horace Walpole has been the lion of the day for the two 

 last months ; and anecdotes of him, his writings, his correspondence, 

 his collection — the last fallen into the hands of that eminent anti- 

 collector, alias disperaer, George Robins — have been retailed day after 

 day. Such being the case, it may be imagined that there can now be 

 very little indeed left for us to say upon the subject ; but, strange 

 as it is, it has actually happened that of the house itself and of the 

 taste displayed in it, nothing whatever has been said, beyond a few 

 meagre, vague, and fumbling remarks, and those chiefly borrowed 

 ones. 



The original house — which forms but a small portion of the present 

 one — had nothing but its situation to recommend it, being little better 

 than — indeed, hardly so good as — some modern " cottages," and con- 

 taining only a few small and low rooms. To these Walpole first added 

 two larger and loftier ones — the dining-room and library over it, -on 

 the north side — in 1753; and in 1760-1 extended the whole very 

 considerably by the gallery and round tower, and tribune or cabinet, 

 with the farther addition of the great or north bedchamber in 1770, 

 six years after which he erected the small Beauclerk tower. 



Horace may, therefore, be said to have " collected" his house as 

 well as the curiosities and articles of virtu with which he stocked it; 

 but though this piecemeal mode of buildiug has been, perhaps, so far 

 advantageous, that it may have prevented perfect uniformity of insi- 

 pidity in the exterior, it has not prevented insipidity itself, nor has it 

 produced any sort of character that can be termed picturesque. As to 

 stvle, we meet with nothing at all better tlian either Batty-Langley- 

 Gothic, or Guildhall-front Gothic — nothing whatever beyond the 

 vulgar idea that mere pointed holes in a wall, and battlements on the 

 top of it, are sufl[icient to constitute a Gothic edifice. We are ready 

 to make allowance for the difficulties then attending any attempts in 

 that style: at that period there were no publications in which it could 

 be studied by means of accurately delineated forms and details ; but 

 if no such information was to be derived from books and engravings, 

 most assuredly it was to be obtained from actual buildings, many of 

 them at that time in a far more perfect state than at present, or even 

 when drawings were first made of them. If he really possessed any 

 feeling vihatever for the art, it might be supposed that a man like 

 Walpole must have derived some insight into the principles and 

 genius of the pointed style, domestic as well asecclesiastic, during his 

 residence atCambridge where he was thefellow-student of Gray — from 

 whose taste he might have acquired something — and where he had 

 constantly before his eyes examples which, if he had not sufficiently 

 studied beforehand, he might at least have bethought himself of when 

 he did set about building in a style not at all understood by professional 

 men and their assistants. 



Scott tells us that "the villa at Stravv'berry Hill gradually swelled 

 into a feudal caslle".' that Walpole " realized his own visions"; and 

 that "in his model of a modern Gothic mansion, he had studiously 

 endeavoured to fit to the purposes of modern convenience or luxury, 

 the rich, varied, and complicated tracery and carving of the ancient 

 cathedral"!! Perhaps, recollecting the architectural sinnings of the 

 author of Abbotsford, Sir Walter thought that any reflections in a less 

 indulgent tone upon those of the author of Otranto and Strawberry 

 Hill, would come with a very bad grace from himself.* When, again. 

 Sir Walter speaks very liberally and in pluralist phraseology of '' tur- 

 rets, towers, galleries, and corridors, with fretted roofs, carved panels 

 and illuminated windows, &c.," "garnished with all the panoply of 



* The house at Abbotsford is so contemptible as an architectural produc- 

 tion, that all the prestige atieniling the associaiions connected with its name 

 vanish on beholding it. Must persons have tjeen wofully disappointed in 

 Ihcir expectations of it— some have even expressed their regret that tliey have 

 seen itat all. 



chivalry ;" wherein he certainly indulges not a little in the privilege of 

 a romance writer, and somewhat trespasses upon that oi iX^e flourishing 

 George Robins. To talk of the galleries and corridors of Strawberry 

 Hill inevitably calls to mind the old story of the boy and thousand 

 cats — with this difference, indeed, that the boy at last admitted there 

 really were tno cats, whereas it is impossible to make out more than 

 one gallery at Strawberry Hill, and nothing whatever deserving the 

 name of corridor, as the plan of the building — and there is no arguing 

 against such evidence — plainly shows. As to Gothic tracery and 

 carving, there is scarcely any, and most certainly no tracery to be 

 traced in the vi'indows, which are externally no better than so many 

 gaps, without even any sort of mouldings or other finishing. Now, 

 whatever errors there might have been as to combination and general 

 character, it might have been thought that a man whose taste was so 

 essentially microecopic as was Horace Walpole's would, at any rate, have 

 been tolerably exact as to minutiEe and detail. Yet, so far is this from 

 being the case, that even those parts of the interior fittings-up which 

 are said to be expressly in imitation of original models, retain very 

 little of them except the mere general pattern, without aught of the 

 original character; as it is, the bookcases are only "bird-cage" Gothic — 

 most meagre and wiry. It is singular that one vfho could note all the 

 most trifling details of workmanship, in minor articles of virtii — in 

 carvings, enamels, ivories, bronzes, &e. — should be incapable of dis- 

 tinguishing the prodigious difference between his own soi-disant 

 Gothicizings and the things they professed, however distantly, to 

 imitate ; or that if at all aware of such difference in what regards 

 character and feeling, he should not at once have detected the cause 

 of it, and adopted a more satisfactory system. 



We do not, like many, make it a sneering reproach against Straw- 

 berry Hill, that it is little better than " a lath and plaster" fabric, 

 patched together at different times. Neither of those circumstances 

 at all affects the question now under consideration ; for however light 

 or even flimsy in regard to construction the house itself, it might have 

 been made to display, as an architectural idea, many finished graces 

 of design, well-selected and well-studied forms, well-understood pro- 

 files, careful and well-executed detail : there might, in short have been 

 something like g«s/o manifested in the treatnientof the subject, though 

 the materials employed were ever so slight and homely. The employ- 

 ment of fictitious materials — of wood instead of stone — of ornaments 

 and mouldings cast in composition or papier miiche, instead of being 

 carved by hand, does not necessarily produce a trumperiness of appear- 

 ance ; on the contrary, whether the result be trumpery-looking or not 

 depends less upon the worth of the materials and the mode in which 

 the appearance aimed at is produced, than upon the taste which the 

 architect or artist expresses in his ideas. Instead of beauty of design 

 being destroyed by the ordinariness of the materials employed, it 

 confers an cesthetic value upon these last which makes ample amends 

 for their want of costliness ; and if there is to be any disproportion 

 at all between the worth of the one and the other, it is a lesser fault 

 to have an artist-like design executed in " trumpery" materials, than 

 a trumpery and tasteless design, however excellent the materials 

 employed for it.* 



Of both trumpery and bad taste, and of gross architectural solecisms 

 — many of them downright vulgar in themselves, and almost inex- 

 plicable, as sanctioned by one who has the credit of having been a 

 "minute antiquary" — Strawberry Hill affords so many instances, that 

 wherever any sort of illusion is produced it is only for a moment, 

 being dispelled at the next glance, or the next step. We grant that 

 Walpole himself speaks very disparagingly of his own architectural 

 doings, but it is with that sort of affected compliment-begging 

 humility, which seeks nothing so much as to be contradicted ; and 



• Of course this is to be taken cum gravo salis ; we must not be understood 

 as holding it to be matter of pcrlect indifference whether a building be solidly 

 constructed or not, provided ii does but satisfy the eye, because, in proportion 

 as it is beautiful, is ilie pleasure it affords increased by knowing that it is 

 durable also, and calculated to last indefinitely. What we chieliy mean to 

 say is, that where any sort of character is aimed at at all. ihe slightness of 

 the materials, or their being fictitious ones, is no excuse at all for the design 

 itself being incorrect, slovenly, and tasteless. 



