Strawberry Hill Restored: The Past, Present, and Future of Horace Walpole's Little Gothic Castle

Strawberry Hill Restored: The Past, Present, and Future of Horace Walpole’s Little Gothic Castle

Thursday, September 24, 2015
5:30 PM
Barney Library, 71 Main Street, Farmington

The Lewis Walpole Library, in collaboration with the Farmington Libraries and the Village Lecture Series, will host a lecture by Michael Snodin, former head of the Designs section of the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Paintings at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, entitled Strawberry Hill Restored: The Past, Present, and Future of Horace Walpole’s Little Gothic Castle.

Strawberry Hill, Britain’s finest example of Georgian Gothic revival architecture, was the creation of Horace Walpole, (1717-1797), an English art historian, man of letters, antiquarian,Whig politician, and son of Britain’s first Prime Minister. Walpole built Strawberry Hill to house his extensive library and collections of art and antiquities which were among the most significant in eighteenth-century Britain. The house also inspired Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto, the first gothic novel. Michael Snodin, Chairman of the Strawberry Hill Trust, will tell the remarkable story of the Trust’s efforts to restore Horace Walpole’s “little gothic castle” and reassemble its collections. Much of this work has been informed by the holdings of the Lewis Walpole Library.A reception will follow the lecture.

This event is free and open to the public. Advanced registration is requested for this program to estimate attendance. Please call 860-673-6791 for details or register online. If you have special needs to attend library programs, contact the library in advance.