St Mary’s University, Twickenham
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| Motto | Latin: Monstra te Esse Matrem |
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Motto in English
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Show Thyself a Mother" |
| Type | Research university |
| Established | 1850 (as St Mary's College) 2014 (gained university status) |
| Affiliation | Roman Catholic |
| Endowment | £29.04 million |
| Chancellor | Vincent Cardinal Nichols |
| Vice-Chancellor | Francis Campbell |
| Students | 5,535 (2015/16) |
| Undergraduates | 4,120 (2015/16) |
| Postgraduates | 1,415 (2015/16) |
| Location |
Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, London, United Kingdom 51°26′15″N 0°20′06″W / 51.4376°N 0.335°WCoordinates: 51°26′15″N 0°20′06″W / 51.4376°N 0.335°W |
| Campus | Suburban |
| Affiliated universities |
University of Surrey University of London |
| Colours | Blue and White |
| Affiliations |
Cathedrals Group ACCU IFCU |
| Website | www |
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Complete (2018, national) |
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The Guardian (2018, national) |
105 | |
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Times/Sunday Times (2018, national) |
116 | |
St Mary's University, Twickenham, is a research university located in Strawberry Hill, Twickenham, in South West London. Founded in 1850, it is generally acknowledged to be the oldest Roman Catholic university in the United Kingdom. Formerly called St Mary’s University College, it was granted full university title by the Privy Council on 23 January 2014.
The university is built on land previously attached to Strawberry Hill House, which was originally a small cottage in two or 3 acres (12,000 m2) of land by the River Thames. Horace Walpole, a son of the politician Robert Walpole, rented the cottage in 1747 and subsequently bought it. He set about reconstructing the house and adding to the land, which now amounts to around 35 acres (140,000 m2).
Walpole did not follow the conventional eighteenth-century fashion of classical building, but sought his inspiration in medieval styles, creating a notable early example of neo-Gothic architecture. Some of his contemporaries imitated his design and so this house and the idea it embodied take their place in the history of architecture as "Strawberry Hill Gothic".
By the end of the 20th century, Strawberry Hill House had fallen into a state of disrepair, with the cost of reversing its condition too substantial for the College to meet. The Grade One listed building had been registered as a building at risk by English Heritage (now Historic England) in 1996, and in August 2002 the Strawberry Hill Trust was formed with a mission to restore the building and open it to a wider public. After the building was included in the 2004 World Monuments Fund Watch list of the world’s 100 Most Endangered Sites and featured on the BBC Two programme Restoration, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the Strawberry Hill Trust a £4.6 million grant in 2005. £370,000 development funding and £1.4 million of investment from St Mary’s was also received, but finance still fell short of the projected £8.2 million cost of restoration. The shortfall was finally met in 2007 and in July of that year the lease was transferred from the Catholic Education Service to the Trust. Restoration began in 2008 and the house was opened to the public in September 2010 following the completion of the first phase of the £9 million project.
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