Horace Would Have Been So Proud

Horace Walpole's 'little Gothic castle' in Twickenham, Strawberry Hill, has recently re-opened to the public after a huge restoration which has seen the exterior whitewashed and the rooms stripped of Victorian and later accretions to return to their state when Walpole, the First of the Goths, died in 1797. It's been open for guided tours for a couple of weeks, but Saturday was the first day the public could go round under their own steam. So the LGMG decided to go and look round: never a better occasion for doing so.

If you spurn the audio guide you have instead a little booklet with Walpole's own description of the house leading you round the rooms. The whole place is obviously very, very much a work in progress and while there are spots of magnificence you need a lot of imagination in the more bare and echoey parts. The gardens are full of mud and mire. One of us remembered visiting about a dozen years ago when Walpole's house was being used by St Mary's College and still had its Victorian (and later) furniture, wallpaper and decoration, and was a bit disappointed. The full restoration, including gathering together some of Walpole's collection, is still to come. Having taken that brave decision to take the whole house back to 1797 rather than leave it where it was, I hope the Strawberry Hill Trust can actually follow through. It will, assuming they can, eventually be marvellous rather than just intriguing as it is at the moment.

We were all issued with charming polythene overshoes which fitted better over some Gothic foot attire than others. Still, the staff were delighted we were there. 'Horace would have been so proud', said the lady on the desk.