The History of Stowe Gardens

Heroic, majestic, breathtaking - Stowe Gardens in Buckinghamshire is no ordinary garden. It is 400 acres of extraordinary vistas, lakes, trees and architecture (including more than 30 Grade I listed buildings) with hardly a flower in sight. It is a garden to wander around and admire the views, but it is also one where history is written in every carefully placed tree and statue.

This combination of landscape, sculpture and buildings make up one of the most important landscape gardens in the world. Stowe was the home of the ambitious Grenville-Temple family whose fortunes rose to dizzy heights in the 18th century - their numbers included William Pitt the Younger (whose mother was a Grenville) and George Grenville, Prime Minister from 1763-5. They were determined to create a great estate to reflect their esteemed position in society; every monarch from George IV to Elizabeth II came to see Stowe and its legendary gardens.

A Cast of Worthies
Sir Richard Temple built the core of the house between 1676 and 1683, but it was Richard's son, Viscount Cobham, who began the garden in earnest in 1713. He employed all the great designers and architects of the day - William Kent, Charles Bridgeman, Sir John Vanbrugh and finally 'Capability' Brown - to create a carefully sculpted 'natural' landscape, the cutting-edge design of its day. Stowe pioneered the trend away from fussy, formal gardens to a new, more open style.

All around Stowe are clues to Viscount Cobham's preoccupations and prejudices. The Temple of British Worthies was built to house his collection of stone busts depicting everyone from King Alfred to Isaac Newton, but deliberately leaving out the top religious and political figures of the day. An inscription to the 'faithful Signor Fido' (a greyhound) amused some, but infuriated others. Cobham also commissioned Grecian ruins, Roman temples, grottos, a Corinthian arch and a Palladian bridge throughout the grounds.

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