Horace Walpole (1717–97) was the supreme dilettante and witty social commentator of the century. An ‘arbiter of taste’ and connoisseur of the arts, he played a large part in changing fashion and taste, and was proud of influencing others to follow his lead. For instance, he gloried in getting his friend ‘Dickie’ Bateman of Old Windsor to convert his gardens, filled with chinoiserie in the 1730s and 1740s, to a showcase for Gothic architecture: ‘I preached so effectually that his every pagoda took the veil’. And it is no exaggeration to claim that he transformed Twickenham after his arrival in 1747, and his subsequent development of Strawberry Hill from what was known as a classical village to something more ‘Gothick’ in flavour. In making him the subject of this chapter it is as a patron and one who determined how prints should appear, for he was not himself an engraver.

Comparison may be drawn between Walpole and two figures already encountered, Lord Burlington at Chiswick and Lord Cobham at Stowe. In terms of land ownership he held no equivalent to the vast estates of Burlington (including massive holdings in Yorkshire) and Cobham, but as a cultural influence Walpole could aspire to be in their league. He was to a much smaller extent a patron, and relied on artists to present an image of Strawberry Hill and its gardens that he firmly directed. Nor was his philosophy of garden design confined to Strawberry Hill: his advice extended to a number of other properties, especially within the Twickenham area.

Walpole visited and commented on a large number of gardens, but in this sphere he is best known for The History of the Modern Taste in Gardening (published 1780, although ready a decade before). This is the most read and quoted discursive text of the time, although in detail and coverage it had to yield to Thomas Whately's Observations on Modern Gardening (1770), which does not, however, look at history. Readers of Walpole's essay should be aware of its bias, the ‘Whig view of garden history’ as it has become known, in which the landscape garden is seen as an upward and ever more naturalistic progress from William Kent to the grand climax of ‘Capability’ Brown, even though Walpole tempers that by declaring that an owner with vision and taste is the best designer of his own property.