Gothic Residences

It’s just so much easier to write a Gothic novel, when you’re writing it from inside a castle, right? Well, several of the earliest writers of Gothic fiction thought so. I’ve touched before on the inextricable ties that link the Gothic genre of literature to the style of architecture with which it shares a name. The term “Gothic” first began to be applied to a specific medieval style of architecture after it had fallen out of favor in the 1500s. As the Renaissance spread through Europe, many new designers found the ribbed vaults, flying buttresses, and towering spires of the earlier style to be excessive and barbaric, thus naming them after the Gothic “barbarians” who had destroyed Rome. But after another couple of centuries, public opinion came around again and prominent members of European society began to show renewed interest in the medieval era, and especially medieval architecture. One of the most influential of those figures was Horace Walpole.

Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill House

Horace Walpole is widely credited with having invented the Gothic novel. His 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto was subtitled “A Gothic Story,” thus associating that term with literature for the first time and spawning an entire literary movement. But he can also be credited with helping to kick off the Gothic architectural revival in England. In addition to being a writer, Walpole was a wealthy politician and a passionate antiquarian. He loved to collect art and artifacts from throughout history, and of course would need a home with the appropriate “gloomth”—as he called it—in which to display his collection. In 1749, Walpole began construction on his new villa in Twickenham, London, which he christened with the rather un-Gothic name “Strawberry Hill House.” He continued to build onto his villa in several stages over the next several decades. Strawberry Hill House combined different elements of Gothic architecture, such as battlements and turrets inspired by castles and the stained-glass windows and decorative vaulted ceilings of medieval abbeys and cathedrals. Once construction was completed, Walpole invited the public to come tour through his home and view his antiquities. In recent years, Strawberry Hill House has undergone restoration and is now once again open to the public.

William Beckford’s Fonthill Abbey

William Beckford followed in Walpole’s footsteps, both in his writing and in his architectural choices. Today, Beckford is best known for his Gothic novel Vathek (1786), which combines the Gothic elements established by Walpole with popular Orientalist trends inspired by the recently translated Arabian Nights. Beckford was also the son of a wealthy plantation owner, and considered to be the richest commoner in England for a time. Like Walpole, Beckford was a collector—he collected artwork, especially Renaissance paintings. And like his predecessor, he embarked on an ambitious architectural project to house his collection. Fonthill Abbey, also sometimes called Beckford’s Folly, was built to resemble an immense Gothic cathedral. Construction began in 1796, and once completed Fonthill Abbey was said to be the largest personal residence in the world—and Beckford lived there alone. The abbey’s most noticeable feature, its central tower, collapsed several times during construction and a final time in 1825, taking much of the western wing out with it. Most of the rest of the estate was demolished a few decades later, and only a small fragment of this grandiose building remains today.

Of course, not all Gothic authors were wealthy English gentlemen with fortunes to squander on bringing their Gothic fantasies to life in the form of elaborate mansions. But Horace Walpole’s legacy of linking the Gothic literary genre with the architectural style persisted, nonetheless. Many later (and poorer) authors took advantage of what Gothic architecture was available to them: Victor Hugo turned to a familiar public landmark in his native city of Paris while writing his famous Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and Bram Stoker found inspiration for Dracula while visiting Whitby Abbey, medieval ruins located in North Yorkshire, England.

Given the option, though, I would totally build myself a Gothic castle! But perhaps with more architectural forethought than William Beckford. What do you think of these two Gothic mansions? What sort of Gothic mansion would you build for yourself? Let me know in the comments!