(1717-97)
Although classical models decidedly dominated seventeenth and eighteenth century architecture, the native Gothic tradition never died out. In Oxford particularly Gothic architecture continued with hardly a hesitation. Some of the Wren School dabbled in the Gothic, as in Kent's choir screen at Gloucester Cathedral (1742) and Merlin's Cave (1735) built at Queen Caroline's orders in Richmond Gardens. The most notable Gothic-Revival architects before the nineteenth century are the Warwickshire squire Sanderson Miller (1717-80), who build sham castles in the 1740s at the battlefield of Edgehill and in Hagley Park, as well as a Gothic hall at Lacock Abbey (1753-55), and Horace Walpole, who built the famous Strawberry Hill (1748-77).
Walpole's Strawberry Hill is a fantastic "romantic" architectural cappricio. We will visit Strawberry Hill, along with Chiswick House, on our last field trip in late July and witness the two best examples of the Gothic and the Neo-Palladian modes of architecture.
Strawberry Hill (1748-77)