Part IV: Analysis, interpretation, and recommendations

Abstract

While Walpole is remembered today as one of the first — and most influential — landscape historians and critics, how he applied his theories on landscape to his own garden at Strawberry Hill remains to be explored. In his essay, ‘The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening’, Walpole not only chronicled the evolution of the English landscape garden, but also defined many of its most essential characteristics. Originally written between 1750 and 1771, while Walpole was laying out his garden at Strawberry Hill, the essay provides the clearest expression of Walpole’s ideas about the history, form, and significance of landscape.48 Together with his correspondence, the ‘History’ provides a critical framework for analyzing the relationship between Walpole’s theories on design and his practice at Strawberry Hill. Walpole’s choices for Strawberry Hill suggest that, for him, the Gothic of his house and the green of his garden were two interconnected and essential parts of a larger English landscape.