About

On World Goth Day join a special themed guided tour exploring how Horace Walpole’s villa and his novel The Castle of Otranto (1764) sparked an entirely new literary genre.

Moving through the house, discover:

• Why Walpole longed for medieval drama
• How Strawberry Hill became a stage set for Gothic fiction
• The supernatural elements that shocked 18th-century readers
• How Otranto’s ghosts paved the way for modern Gothic culture