Walpole, the generalissimo of all bachelors, took Strawberry Hill.
'Twicknam is as much as Twynam,' declares Norden, 'a place scytuate
between two rivers.' So fertile a locality could not be neglected by the
monks of old, the great gardeners and tillers of land in ancient days;
and the Manor of Twickenham was consequently given to the monks of
Christ Church, Canterbury, by King Edred, in 491; who piously inserted
his anathema against any person--whatever their rank, sex, or order--who
should infringe the rights of these holy men. 'May their memory,' the
king decreed, with a force worthy of the excommunicator-wholesale, Pius
IX., 'be blotted out of the Book of Life; may their strength continually
waste away, and be there no restorative to repair it!' nevertheless,
there were in the time of Lysons, a hundred and fifty acres of
fruit-gardens at Twickenham: the soil being a sandy loam, raspberries
grew plentifully. Even so early as Queen Elizabeth's days, Bishop
Corbet's father had a nursery garden at Twickenham,--so that King
Edred's curse seems to have fallen as powerlessly as it may be hoped all
subsequent maledictions may do.

In 1698, one of the Earl of Bradford's coachmen built a small house on a
piece of ground, called in old works, Strawberry-Hill-Shot; lodgings
were here let, and Colley Cibber became one of the occupants of the
place, and here wrote his Comedy called 'Refusal; or the Ladies'
Philosophy.' The spot was so greatly admired that Talbot, Bishop of
Durham, lived eight years in it, and the Marquis of Carnarvon succeeded
him as a tenant: next came Mrs. Chenevix, a famous toy-woman. She was
probably a French woman, for Father Courayer--he who vainly endeavoured
to effect an union between the English and the Gallican churches--lodged
here some time. Horace Walpole bought up Mrs. Chenevix's lease, and
afterwards the fee-simple; and henceforth became the busiest, if not the
happiest, man in a small way in existence.