7:43pm Saturday 27th October 2007
By Chris Wickham
One million pounds is still needed to secure the future of an endangered 18th century Twickenham building, according to the trust overseeing its restoration.
Last month, the Strawberry Hill Trust, which was formed in August 2002 with the purpose to take over Strawberry Hill, reached an agreement with St Mary's University College, which own the house, to enable an £8.9million restoration project to commence.
The development stage of the project, costing £700,000, is almost complete and work on the £8.2m restoration of Horace Walpole's Villa, in Waldegrave Road, is set to begin next year.
The Heritage Lottery Fund has provided £4.6m of the cash required to restore the "little Gothic castle" and Carole Patey, from the trust, said most of the remaining £3.6m had been found.
"All the funding is in place apart from the final £1m which we need to raise, ideally, during the next year," she said. "We have received major grants as well as gifts from private individuals and those who wish to remain anonymous."
Providing the £1m is raised, restoration work on the villa, transformed by Horace Walpole between 1747 and his death in 1790 into a celebrated Gothic masterpiece, will begin next autumn with a plan to re-open the restored house in 2010.
As part of the fund-raising work, a Christmas shopping day will be held at the house on Saturday, November 3.
Suppliers to the house shop will be present between 11am and 6pm offering everything from jewellery to paintings to chocolates.
Meanwhile, Michael Snodin, chair of the trust, spoke at St Mary's last week about the plans, summarising the history and explaining the timetable for restoration.
And he has been outlining some of the interesting discoveries made at the house during the development stage.
"There has been an unexpected discovery of Walpole's famous painted Gothic decoration from the 1790s, found lying under a couple of layers of paint on part of the staircase," he said. "More investigation remains to be done but this discovery means that the hall and staircase can be accurately restored to its condition in Walpole's time."
Mr Snodin said some decoration from 1773 had been discovered and added he was keen to find pre-1942 photographs of the north side of the house facing Waldegrave Road.
"While we know what the gates looked like, we have no photographs of the railings along the road, which were removed for the war effort in 1942," he said. "We are going to replace both the gates and railings."
© Copyright 2001-2012 Newsquest Media Group
http://www.richmondandtwickenhamtimes.co.uk