1910 Postcard, Courtesy Alan Winter

This house originated as a single storey thatched cottage built by Horace Walpole when he established a flower garden at Strawberry Hill around 1765. It was known as the Cottage in the Garden and had 2 rooms in which he kept many of his books and to which he would escape when he had had enough of the visitors coming to Strawberry.

In the 19^th century it seemed to have been used by Lady Waldegrave as a gardener’s cottage and was given the name Harptree from Harptree Court, the Waldegrave estate in Somerset. A print of 1792 (top left) shows a single storey building with windows and a porch similar to those of the house today.

Like Strawberry Hill House it went into private ownership in 1883.

Since then the cottage has undergone substantial changes but a Saracen’s head can be seen over the white front porch; wrought iron gates also survive from Walpole’s time which had been moved from elsewhere on the estate.