STRAWBERRY HILL RE-OPENS AFTER £9 MILLION RESTORATION

The Strawberry Hill Trust today announced that the £9 million, two-year-long restoration of Horace Walpole’s magnificent Gothic castle Strawberry Hill is complete and the site will re-open to the public on Saturday, October 2, 2010.

Strawberry Hill, in Twickenham near the banks of the River Thames in London, is Britain’s finest example of Georgian Gothic Revival architecture and is set to become a major tourist and heritage attraction for London and the UK. It was designed and created as a Gothic fantasy between 1747 and 1792 by Horace Walpole, historian, writer, collector, and son of Britain’s first Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole.

Having fallen into a state of extreme disrepair, the house had been on English Heritage’s At Risk Register since 1991. Furthermore, it was listed by New York based World Monuments Fund as one of the world’s 100 most endangered heritage sites in 2004, a move which proved a catalyst in starting a campaign for its repair. The restoration program has been made possible by a £4.9m grant from the UK’s Heritage Lottery Fund and over £1.5m from World Monuments Fund—including a $1.1m donation from the Robert W. Wilson Challenge Fund to Conserve Our Heritage—as well as numerous charitable trusts, local societies, and individual patrons.