Breathing new life into Strawberry Hill

Following a painstaking £9 million restoration project, Horace Walpole's 'little plaything house' in Twickenham, London, will reopen to visitors on 2 October.

Strawberry Hill is a house of pure fantasy, embodying romantic notions of medieval life. Fireplaces and bookcases were cribbed from the tombs of kings and saints, and fabricated coats of arms - from non-existent ancestors - adorn the ceilings. It became the first gothic revival house in the world, (inspiring a new architectural style: 'Strawberry Hill gothic') and still remains the finest example of Georgian Gothic revival architecture in existence.

Follow the link to The Guardian Editor's pick of the top architecture stories for a slideshow of images of the restoration work