  We have carried out HST snapshot observations at 1.1 $\mu$m of 281 candidate
strongly lensed galaxies identified in the wide-area extragalactic surveys
conducted with the Herschel space observatory. Our candidates comprise systems
with flux densities at $500\,\mu$m$ S_{500}\geq 80$ mJy. We model and subtract
the surface brightness distribution for 130 systems, where we identify a
candidate for the foreground lens candidate. After combining visual inspection,
archival high-resolution observations, and lens subtraction, we divide the
systems into different classes according to their lensing likelihood. We
confirm 65 systems to be lensed. Of these, 30 are new discoveries. We
successfully perform lens modelling and source reconstruction on 23 systems,
where the foreground lenses are isolated galaxies and the background sources
are detected in the HST images. All the systems are successfully modelled as a
singular isothermal ellipsoid. The Einstein radii of the lenses and the
magnifications of the background sources are consistent with previous studies.
However, the background source circularised radii (between 0.34 kpc and 1.30
kpc) are $\sim$3 times smaller than the ones measured in the sub-mm/mm for a
similarly selected and partially overlapping sample. We compare our lenses with
those in the SLACS survey, confirming that our lens-independent selection is
more effective at picking up fainter and diffuse galaxies and group lenses.
This sample represents the first step towards characterising the near-IR
properties and stellar masses of the gravitationally lensed dusty star-forming
galaxies.
