Conservation in Action: Strawberry Hill, Twickenham

This article interprets the original Strawberry Hill garden and suggests that the restoration of the landscape, although well‐intentioned, represents a missed opportunity to recreate a scheme based on Walpole's correspondence and commissioned paintings to evoke some of his primary design intentions. Although the project is well‐intentioned and elements of the physical entity of the place have been restored, due to a fundamental lack of understanding of what it meant, its Genius Loci – the essential spirit of the place – has not been captured by the conservation project.