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Victorian Gothic House Styles: History and Pictures

By Jackie Craven, About.com

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The First Gothic Revival Homes

Strawberry Hill, Gothic Revival Home of Sir Horace Walpole

Strawberry Hill, Gothic Revival Home of Sir Horace Walpole

Johnann Heinrich Muntz, painter. Public Domain
In the mid-1700s, the English author Sir Horace Walpole decided to redo his country home with details inspired by medieval churches and cathedrals. Walpole's house, located at Strawberry Hill near Twickenham, became a model for Gothic Revival architecture.

Gothic Revival architecture has many of these features:

  • Pointed windows with decorative tracery
  • Grouped chimneys
  • Pinnacles
  • Battlements and shaped parapets
  • Leaded glass
  • Quatrefoil and clover-shaped windows
  • Oriel windows
  • Asymmetrical floor plan
Next: Romantic Gothic Revival >>

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