The collector, scholar and legendary gossip Horace Walpole woke one morning in June 1764 in the extraordinary fantasy home he had created near the Thames, west of London.

Strawberry Hill had – and now has again after years of careful restoration – roof, battlement and mantelpieces bristling with spires and gargoyles, stairs and bookcases copied from the tombs of medieval kings. Its passageways and library ceilings were embellished with imagined ancestors, and windows glitter with stained glass collected by the crate load from across Europe.