S t o w e  G a r d e n s

T h e   O x f o r d   B r i d g e

&

B o y c o t t  P a v i l i o n s

The visitors to Stowe Gardens, and to the School, usually enter the estate through the Oxford Gate, passing the small Lodges designed by William Kent, before driving on to the grand, Oxford Avenue, crossing the Oxford water. Traversing this, is an elegant, rusticated bridge thought to have been built around 1761, and it is embellished with 8 urns. Close inspection of these urns reveal each is "decorated", with the relief of a very hideous face. These urns were thought to have been salvaged from one of Sir John Vanbrugh's former buildings in the park, the Sleeping Parlour, demolished around 1759.

T h e  B o y c o t t  P a v i l i o n s

The straight drive up the Oxford Avenue, to the main entrance of the School and to the Gardens, runs parallel to an old Roman road, ascending the hill, where the 2 Boycott Pavilions stand at its summit.

They are named after a nearby village to the East, long since vanished. They were designed in 1728 by James Gibbs, and both East and West pavilions were originally crowned with an obelisk. However, in 1754, a continental architect, Giovanni Battista Bora, brought to Stowe by Lord Cobham in 1752, radically changed the Pavilions, by removing the obelisks, replacing them with the domes and cupolas we see today. The Western pavilion has always been a residence, originally inhabited by a Colonel Sam Speed, one of Lord Cobham's veterans from the Marlborough wars. The Eastern Pavilion being utilized as a Belvedere, before it too being converted into to an elegant abode, by Stowe School in the late 1950's.

The visitor continues up the drive and past the School entrance and the North front of Stowe House with its fine Portico, on to the entrance to the Stowe Landscape Gardens Visitor centre.

There is a small cinema which shows a brief history of the Temple and Grenville Families of Stowe, and their development of the gardens, employing the finest landscape gardeners and architects and designers of their day. The work of the National Trust, and their current on-going restoration of the Gardens is also included in the short film.

STOWE LANDSCAPE GARDENS Follytowers 2007

Follow the trail into the gardens (right arrow)

 

 

 

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