Tourists again! Stowe House was only about a half-hour from where we had slept, so we got there at about 10am, just as the place was waking up. Much of Stowe Avenue, leading from Buckingham, is actually the driveway leading in to the place, and there is this huge Triumphal Arch greeting you as you drive up.
As we said yesterday, the house itself was not open, but the gardens — the gardens are to die for! The place was owned by the Temple family from 1571. The Temples were created Earls Temple, then Marquess Temple, and finally Dukes of Buckingham (in 1784). The family is full of Knights, Baronets, Barons, MPs, Prime Ministers (George Grenville, George Grenville, William Pitt) — it just goes on!
But we're here for the gardens. This is a landscape garden. The guidebook puts it 'Rolling expanses of grass ... framed by artfully placed belts of trees and shrubs and reflected in tranquil stretches of water. Contrasting with these [are] garden buildings in classical and Gothic styles, which were ornamented with sculptures and inscriptions that delivered political and social messages to the discerning viewer.
We've been following the gardens of Capability Brown — well, he was head gardener here from 1741 to 1751. We see here one of his most magnificent failures — the Grecian Valley, a man-made valley surmounted by a Greek temple. Well, it was supposed to be a lake reflecting the temple in its waters, but Brown found that the outflow from the lake-to-be exceeded its inflow, so he changed his plans to make it a valley vista. Still a magnificent piece of work!
There are a number of planned walks around the gardens, each taking you past monuments carrying a certain theme —
The Path of Liberty (1.3 miles) takes you past the Saxon Deities (six of the seven Saxon gods who gave their names to the days of the week), the Gothic Temple (Liberty revived), the Palladian Bridge (Safe shelter — this is one of only four such bridges in existence, completes in 1736), the Temple of Friendship (Political parties and male friendship).
The Path of Virtue (1 mile) takes you past The Queen's Temple (virtuous women), the Cobham Monument (a truly great man), and the Chinese House (the first garden building in England in the Chinese style, decorated with Chinese scenes painted on canvas, it has survived in the gardens since 1738).
The Path of Vice (1.3 miles) takes you past The Queen Caroline Monument (the divine Caroline, wife of George II), The Rotondo (the Medici venus, goddess of sex), Dido's Cave (the doomed love of Dido and Aeneas), the George II Monument (Cobham fell out with George!).
We first walked the Path of Virtue, then went back to the Visitor Centre for a cup of hot soup — most welcome. Then we came back down into the gardens and walked the Path of Liberty and into the Path of Vice. We had to cut this last one short, as it started to rain, but we had a most enjoyable day at Stowe.
By the time we left, it was starting to get dark anyway, and instead of searching for a new campsite, we returned to the same one we left this morning.
Captain James Cook Memorial
Friga
Distance driven — today, 47 miles ( 76 km ); to date, 9,667 miles ( 15,558 km )
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