ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the design concepts for Strawberry Hill and establishes that they are not primarily based around architectural precedent but rather around eighteenth-century theories of the imagination, matters of 'Taste' and antiquarianism. Strawberry Hill is an architectural conceit, an asymmetrically-planned picturesque building drawing on antiquarian printed design sources. The 'Strawberry Committee' of amateur designers consisted of Walpole, John Chute an accomplished amateur architect, antiquarian and connoisseur who played a pivotal role as his 'oracle in taste'. Walpole exercised overall control of the committee and performed the role of antiquarian, searching for architectural and imaginative precedents and sketching-out ideas, although in reality there was no strict division of labour and he was inevitably the final arbiter in matters of taste. Themes of ancestry and genealogy were evident through heraldry and newly commissioned armorial glass, 'In the bow window are ten coats of arms in painted glass, by Peckitt of York, with the principal matches of the family of Walpole'.
