Stowe House and Gardens

The Rotary Club of Wellingborough

Visit to Stowe House and Gardens

Tuesday 17^th May 2016

  The current President of Brackley Rotary Club, Stephen Vanns, acts as an occasional guide at Stowe House and during a recent Rotary District Meeting fell into conversation with our President, Philip Douglas, during which it was arranged that a party from Wellingborough Rotary Club would visit Stowe House for a conducted tour.

  Stowe House is fully occupied, these days, by Stowe School (the former alma mater of Sir Richard Branson for instance) and is run separately from the Capability Brown designed surrounding landscape which is covered by the National Trust.  These landscaped gardens are famous for the many listed buildings, temples, obelisks and statues that are to be found there.

  The visit was extremely interesting and enjoyable for the visitors during which they learnt both the history of Stowe House from 1676 forwards and were able to view the meticulous and ongoing work to restore the fabric of the House being undertaken by the Stowe House Preservation Trust.

  We enjoyed stories of Richard Grenville forcing George III to award him with the Order of the Garter and, subsequently, the dissolute behaviour of the first two Dukes of Buckingham who reduced the family from the richest and most influential in the land to penury and bankruptcy.  This lead to the glorious art and contents of the House becoming lost to the family, in the late 19^th century, through their compulsory sale to pay off their debts, and which contents subsequently were purchased and spread around the museums and great houses of the world.

  One could only dream of the heyday of Stowe, with the 400 rooms it contains, when it was the epicentre of European society and political life and few stately homes can have an entrance hall to rival that at Stowe.  We could only be pleased that Stowe House was saved in 1922 when it was taken over to become the famous Independent School which now fills its rooms and the fact that they have made it possible for the public to enjoy the building and the many stories it holds.

Michael Gent