Hiya and welcome to this blog, this adventure was a quick one but definitely something I would recommend doing.
I work away from home with weird working hours, which often gives me the opportunity to look around my area and see what there is to see.
Stowe was a place that caught my eye as I was driving through the English back roads and I saw that it was a National Trust property and made a note to come back and see it when I get a chance. This blog is that chance I had a few hours and membership to the National Trust properties so here we go.
First of all I think to really understand what you are about to see we need to go through a history lesson of this place - wracked with financial issues, jealousy, and many make-overs! There is a nice ending though.
So this guy Lord Cobham had a lot of money and I mean A LOT so he decided to build these gardens. But to build just a garden is one thing but a garden with "Meaning", now that is something else!
So the story is that he built 3 paths that signified 3 things: Vice, Virtue or Liberty
The following is just cut and pasted from the Gardens Website:
The Path of Vice
Greek mythology was well-known in the eighteenth century. The Paths of Vice and Virtue represent the Greek god, Hercules’ struggle between these two choices. The Path of Vice takes place in the garden of love (designed by then head gardener, appropriately called Mr Love!). The temples in this area allude to stories of seductive women, sordid goings-on and partying to excess. Not for the faint hearted.
The Path of Virtue
The Path of Virtue takes us through an area of the gardens that represents heaven on earth. The temples here show good values, such as the Temple of British Worthies showing the great and the good of Britain’s history. Of course, taking the virtuous path through life isn’t the easiest, so there are many bridges to cross.
The Path of Liberty
This path represents the political aspirations of Lord Cobham. As a simple metaphor it is the longest and hardest of all three walks, showing that politics is never easy. The temples along the way show Britain’s dominance in the eighteenth century. Hence the Temple of Concord and Victory celebrates Britain’s victory in the Seven Years’ War and Lord Cobham’s Pillar shows Cobham as a mighty Roman warrior.
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When I arrived at the gardens I asked one of the volunteers about the different paths as he was pointing to maps but he sort of just shrugged off the idea and told me that with the limited time that I had I should just stick to the center of the gardens which is where all the views and the majority of the sculptures/ Chapels/ architecture is. So lets just start looking at some of the photos I took and dream of being there again some day!
The Beginning
In 1589 John Temple purchased the Stowe Manor and estate. His father had been leasing the house for 18 years earlier. Their large fortune at the time was built on sheep farming and wool. With farms in Oxfordshire and Warwickshire, Stowe made the perfect location for the family home. Not much changed about the area over the following decades.
(https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe/features/history-of-stowe)
After the death of his father Sir Peter Temple, the estate was inherited by Sir Richard Temple. As the fourth owner, he began to develop the gardens until 1683 when a large and impressive new house was completed on the current location. The original house, designed by William Cleare was on a much smaller scale with many alterations made over the years to expand and develop the overall appearance and scale. Eventually the central house had almost tripled in size to a point where even Queen Victoria was jealous.
(https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe/features/history-of-stowe)
With some areas of Stowe not even 100 years old by the late 1830's, the estate was beginning to look neglected. The owner, the Second Duke of Buckingham and Chandos had extravagant tastes and was very poor with money management. After inheriting the estate, he was keen to undertake repairs on the house and gardens but ran up a debt of over £1 million with creditors.
On an official royal visit to the estate by Queen Victoria in 1845, in an effort to impress the Royal Family, the duke borrowed more money to buy expensive new furniture for the house and areas of the gardens. By the end of the decade, everything broke down. Bailiffs seized the estate and a large auction took place. With the number of items being sold, much was sold quickly and cheaply. A 40 day auction at Christie's raised only £75,000.(https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe/features/history-of-stowe)
Despite the expected decline, the third Duke of Buckingham and Chandos managed to save the estate. The second Duke had died in 1861 and just four years later his son was able to move back into the house. For much of the 40's and 50's the house had been mothballed and the gardens left for cattle and sheep grazing. The number of gardening staff was reduced from 40 to four giving a small amount of care to the estate but no major maintenance to the buildings. Through the 1860's a number of repairs were conducted including restoration on a number of temples, the re-opening of Bell Gate to visitors, replanting of plants and the restocking of a museum on the site. Stowe had regained it's status after just a few years.
This didn't last long though. After his death in 1889, after leaving no male heir, the estate passed onto his daughter, Lady Kinloss. She had little use for the estate and initially considered selling it. The house was used sparingly over the following years housing family for short periods of time until shortly after World War I when it was put on the market.(https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe/features/history-of-stowe)
Lady Kinloss' eldest son was due to take ownership of the estate, however he was killed early on in the war. The estate was sold in July of 1921 for £50,000 to Harry Shaw. Another large sale of contents and statues was conducted in 1922 before another sale of the estate in October to the governing body that would later form the Stowe School. Over the next six months, the house was adapted to include classrooms and student sleeping arrangements. Small changes were made over the decades with further school building built.(https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe/features/history-of-stowe)
So this is a current fully functional school! Mate.. I couldn't dream of a school like this!
You see these pubescent humans running around and the only thing I could think was that these kids sweat money for fun!
So out of curiosity I thought why not find out what it will set you back to put your precious little darling through such a 'fancy' (an understatement) school! Please find below for your perusal and a link if this is something you would like to read into further.
By the way that is the fees per term, four terms in a year 47,460 Pounds per year! That is more then I make in a year by double!
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For more information please see: https://www.stowe.co.uk/school/admissions/fees
Also had to google this:
Any ways moving on. So you can pay to go in and see inside the school but I have it on a good authority that it is better to go when school is out and you can see a lot more as it isn't in use by the little princes and princesses! So I will have to come back and revisit this at some point in the future and try to bring Kyran with me as well.
Now for some calming photos of the scenery:
The other cool thing that I saw was that on the grounds of the gardens there is an old church and in the grave yard there is all these tomb stones of previous teachers. academics that have taught or been a part of the school. Anyway my point was that I noticed a few inscriptions that varied from the normal "RIP", "In heaven", and "gone but not forgotten" crap.
Above left: "Director of Music... He showed us the way in Peace and War and in his passing"
Below: Well it is kind of self explanatory... but she is the second wife, she had a kid, but only his kids loved her and to summerise it all up ' A violet by a mossy stone'...
Below: "If life is eternal and love is Immortal, death is only a horizon and horizon is nothing save the limit of sight."
I would definitely recomend that you visit Stowe House, I would however caution that you bring good comfortable walking shoes and even a picnic as there is a lot of garden to cover.
I hope you enjoyed this blog! I don't know about you but when you see such opulence and people living with so much money I feel like the little guy Louis
on Ice Age that says "Yep there's my place and you put me in it!"
Ok well that's is and I look forward to seeing you in another blog! For any further information from what you saw here today be sure to check out: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe
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