Details
TQ 1572
17/10
WALDEGRAVE ROAD
Strawberry Hill (St Mary's Training College)
2.9.52
I
1749-76. Built by Horace Walpole, with William Robinson and later James Essex as executive architects, with some interiors designed by Richard Bently, John Chute, Thomas Pitt, and Robert Adam. The chief facades are to the south and east. Stuccoed, of two to three storeys. Extending southward to the left on the south facade are C19 additions by Lady Waldegrave, which now encase the base of the circular tower (1759), containing kitchens and Round Room Tudor windows. Turret behind, (1777) with steep conical roof covered by fishscale slates.
To the right, a five bay range, two storeys high, with painted two-light windows and buttresses between (Great Cloister to ground floor, Gallery above). Single bay to right, set back, and to right of this a triple angled bow window, two storeys high, with trefoil-headed ogee windows on each facet. (contains Little Parlour and Blue Bed Chamber). Single bay to corner, with similar return to east, of three storeys, with ogeed two-light windows to ground, and first floors and quatrefoils above. To the right, along the east facade, a three-facetted bow with ogee heads to first floor, above which a rectangular oriel with five painted lights, under stepped gable. To the right, a single bay contains the Great Parlour, and above, the library. Square headed oriel to parlour, ogeed cinquefoil headed window within intersecting tracery library, flanked by quatrefoils. Battlemented parapets throughout, with pinnacles at intervals.
Inside, many notable interiors, including: Staircase, (Bentley); Library, with Gothic arches for bookcases; fireplace inspired by that of Edmund Crouchback in Westminster Abbey, and elaborate ceiling (1754, Chute), Holbein Chamber, triple-arched screen, tracered ceiling, elaborate niched fireplace, (Bentley); Gallery, fan-vaulted with elaborate canopied (Pitt); Round Drawing Room, and Beauclerc Room (Adam); Tribune, elaborate domed and traceried ceiling (1763 mostly Chute); Great Bedchamber (1772).
Listing NGR: TQ1581072308
