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Stowe House
Stowe House is a Grade I listed country house in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of the private Stowe School and is owned by the Stowe House Preservation Trust. Over the years, it has been restored and maintained as one of the finest country houses in the UK. Stowe House is regularly open to the public.
The gardens (known as Stowe Gardens, formerly Stowe Landscape Gardens) are a significant example of the English landscape garden and, along with the parkland, passed into the ownership of the National Trust in 1989. Members of the National Trust have free access to the gardens, but there is a charge for all visitors to the house, which goes toward the costs of restoration. The gardens and most of the parkland are listed Grade I separately from the house. The park and gardens saw 213,721 visitors during 2020/21.
The medieval settlement of Stowe clustered around the parish church of St Mary's, Stowe. From 1330, Osney Abbey maintained a manor house at Stowe occupied by a steward. Osney Abbey retained Stowe until it was forced to surrender its estates to the Crown in the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539.
Sir George Gifford owned Stowe Manor and Rectory. He willed it to his son Thomas Gifford (born about 1542 died 16 February 1593). The Stowe estate was leased from Thomas Gifford in 1571 by Peter Temple whose son, John Temple, bought the manor and estate of Stowe in 1589 and it eventually became the home of the Temple family. Their family fortune was based on sheep farming, at Witney in Oxfordshire, and in 1546 they rented a sheep farm in Burton Dassett in Warwickshire. In the late 17th century, the house was completely rebuilt by Sir Richard Temple, 3rd Baronet, (c.1683) on the present site. This house is now the core of the mansion known today.
The house is the result of four main periods of development. Between 1677 and 1683, the architect William Cleare was commissioned by Sir Richard Temple to build the central block of the house. This building was four floors high, including the basement and attics and thirteen bays in length. Cleare had worked as Christopher Wren's chief joiner and based the design of the house on that of Coleshill.
From the 1720s to 1733, under Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, additions to the house included the Ionic north tetrastyle portico by John Vanbrugh, as well as the re-building of the north, east and west fronts. After Vanburgh's death in 1726, work continued under William Kent, and it was probably he who designed the now-demolished two-tier south portico, which consisted of four Tuscan columns with four Ionic or Composite columns above.
From the 1740s to 1760, under Viscount Cobham, the western and the eastern state apartments were expanded.
From 1770 to 1779, Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple obtained a first design from Jacques-François Blondel for the new south front of the house. However this design did not meet with the Earl's approval, in 1771 Robert Adam produced a new design for the south front; this design was adapted and made more uniform by Thomas Pitt assisted by Giovanni Battista Borra and was finished in 1779. The interiors of the new state apartments were not completed until 1788, much of the interior work being by an Italian, Vincenzo Valdrè (1740–1814).
Stowe House
Stowe House is a Grade I listed country house in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of the private Stowe School and is owned by the Stowe House Preservation Trust. Over the years, it has been restored and maintained as one of the finest country houses in the UK. Stowe House is regularly open to the public.
The gardens (known as Stowe Gardens, formerly Stowe Landscape Gardens) are a significant example of the English landscape garden and, along with the parkland, passed into the ownership of the National Trust in 1989. Members of the National Trust have free access to the gardens, but there is a charge for all visitors to the house, which goes toward the costs of restoration. The gardens and most of the parkland are listed Grade I separately from the house. The park and gardens saw 213,721 visitors during 2020/21.
The medieval settlement of Stowe clustered around the parish church of St Mary's, Stowe. From 1330, Osney Abbey maintained a manor house at Stowe occupied by a steward. Osney Abbey retained Stowe until it was forced to surrender its estates to the Crown in the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539.
Sir George Gifford owned Stowe Manor and Rectory. He willed it to his son Thomas Gifford (born about 1542 died 16 February 1593). The Stowe estate was leased from Thomas Gifford in 1571 by Peter Temple whose son, John Temple, bought the manor and estate of Stowe in 1589 and it eventually became the home of the Temple family. Their family fortune was based on sheep farming, at Witney in Oxfordshire, and in 1546 they rented a sheep farm in Burton Dassett in Warwickshire. In the late 17th century, the house was completely rebuilt by Sir Richard Temple, 3rd Baronet, (c.1683) on the present site. This house is now the core of the mansion known today.
The house is the result of four main periods of development. Between 1677 and 1683, the architect William Cleare was commissioned by Sir Richard Temple to build the central block of the house. This building was four floors high, including the basement and attics and thirteen bays in length. Cleare had worked as Christopher Wren's chief joiner and based the design of the house on that of Coleshill.
From the 1720s to 1733, under Richard Temple, 1st Viscount Cobham, additions to the house included the Ionic north tetrastyle portico by John Vanbrugh, as well as the re-building of the north, east and west fronts. After Vanburgh's death in 1726, work continued under William Kent, and it was probably he who designed the now-demolished two-tier south portico, which consisted of four Tuscan columns with four Ionic or Composite columns above.
From the 1740s to 1760, under Viscount Cobham, the western and the eastern state apartments were expanded.
From 1770 to 1779, Richard Grenville-Temple, 2nd Earl Temple obtained a first design from Jacques-François Blondel for the new south front of the house. However this design did not meet with the Earl's approval, in 1771 Robert Adam produced a new design for the south front; this design was adapted and made more uniform by Thomas Pitt assisted by Giovanni Battista Borra and was finished in 1779. The interiors of the new state apartments were not completed until 1788, much of the interior work being by an Italian, Vincenzo Valdrè (1740–1814).
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