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Home , Capability Brown, Stowe House

Which path can Western Boycott Pavilion we you Eastern Boycott Pavilion down today? Leave the New Inn visitor centre behind you and take your time to stroll down Bell Gate Drive, as visitors to Stowe Roman Boxers have done for nearly 300 years. You can pick from one of our three paths, created in the eighteenth century by Lord Cobham. Though these aren’t loops of the garden, Statue of Queen Caroline they were intentionally created this way to illustrate Lord Cobham’s political and social beliefs. Or feel free to explore Stowe and create your own path through the gardens. School Golf course only (not NT) The Path of Vice Easy going walk – 1 mile, 25 minutes* Rotunda Let us tempt you along the Path of Vice. Turn left as you enter the garden to be led through life’s indulgences. The temples in this area are associated Eleven Acre Lake ’s Cave Stowe * * PADDOCK COURSE WALK with lust and illicit love; the Hermitage story links into sexual jealousy and House fr* Entrance melancholy whilst the Temple of is dedicated to the unfaithfulness Golf course of women. Some say to truly appreciate virtue you must first dabble in vice. Statue f Temple of (not NT) of ing We couldn’t comment. George II Concord Temple and Victory of Venus and Antaeus The Path of Virtue

GRNET’S WAL Sleeping Wood Steady stroll – 1.2 miles, 25-30 minutes (slight gradient)* Circle of the Temple of St Mary’s Church If you are not feeling quite so naughty today, perhaps you’d rather follow PEGG’S TERRACE Dancing Ancient the Path of Virtue? Head left as you enter the garden but don’t stray too Hermitage Virtue Captain far down the Path of Vice; take a right turn passing the Cascade towards D Grenville’s Fane of Doric Arch Column the Elysian Fields. Along this path you’ll meet those the family held in high Queen’s Temple Grecian Valley Pastoral Poetry esteem; the Ancient Greeks, Queen Charlotte (wife of George III, for whom Cascade and artificial ruins Captain Cook’s Samson and Queen’s Temple was named) and those honoured as Great British Worthies. Monument Elysian Fields the Philistine Thanet Walk D Octagon Lake Shell Bridge ’s The Path of Liberty Western Lake Pavilion Fountain Vigorous ramble – 1.3 miles, 30-35 minutes (slight gradient)* Lord Wooden This was the final path created through the garden, themed around the Chatham’s Bridge Temple Hawkwell Field origin of English political liberty. Wonder at the Temple of Concord and rn Eastern Lake Pavilion of British Victory, the first Greek revival building in , the imposing Gothic Congreve’s Gothic Temple Monument Worthies Saxon Deities Temple and the breath-taking views over large open spaces across to the D parkland beyond the Ha-ha. Bell Gate LORD COBHAM’S WALK Pebble Alcove Lord Cobham’s Pillar * all times are approx. Bell Gate Drive is approx 0.3miles/480m long

Palladian Bridge BELL GATE DRIVE Temple of Friendship Key f V Visitor Reception Temples Corinthian Arch Chinese House s Shop Statues returning in 2016 y Car Path r Café Farmhouse New Inn Grass path Garden Lamport Garden f Toilets  y V rfsDL D Dog waste bin Livestock present L Bookshop Buggy op*st

* From 12 Apr - 30 Oct Please note this map is intended as a guide only and is not drawn to scale at Stowe

Lazy days and picnics ‘Stowedrops’ and spring flowers

Homemade Autumn ambles and traditional

Getting around Restoring Stowe – The programme Capability Found A short shuttle service is available from New Inn to Bell Gate. An ambitious programme of restoration is underway and this 2016 marks the 300th anniversary of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s Between April and October you will be able to hop on a buggy, year you’ll see the return of lost statues. From 12 April to 30 birth, one of the most influential landscape gardeners. As his first stopping in three locations including the House and Capability October, make your way to the Temple of Venus to discover and only employed role as Head Gardener, Stowe is where he Found exhibition. This service runs from 10.15am picking up at Bell Stowe’s heroic statues, stature and status, in our temporary learnt his trade and built up contacts before he moved onto other Gate every half an hour. Alternatively speak to our welcome team exhibition ‘No more heroes?’. gardens across the country. From 12 April to 30 October drop in at about hiring a four seater buggy to explore at your own pace. We ask the Temple of Concord and Victory for the exhibition to discover for a £10 donation when you hire a buggy, which helps us cover the more about Brown, installations by the Embroiders’ Guild and relax cost of providing this service. over tea and cake. Check our website for more events and details.

Finding out more upkeep and restoration of • Visit the Welcome and Welcome map Stowe the gardens and New Inn Discovery Centre and take tours Tel: 01280 817156 of Email: [email protected] In taking on the management of the gardens Time for tea? • Pick up a leaflet at New Inn or nationaltrust.org.uk/stowe • The café at the New Inn visit www.stowehouse.org at Stowe in 1989, the took visitor centre is open from In an emergency? possession of a garden in decay. 10am to 6pm March to Paw patrols If you’re in need of assistance whilst in the gardens October and closes at 4pm • Dogs are welcome throughout A family history of ambition Since 1989 the Trust has worked over the winter months the gardens and parkland call our Duty Mobile phone on 07990771841 and rapaciousness had led carefully to restore large • Between 12 April and 30 • Please keep them on short to bankruptcy, sale and in portions of the 250 acres of October 2016, pause at our and use the bins provided Share your memories and keep in touch with us the second decade of the Grade I listed gardens. exhibition café at the Temple • Livestock are present in the twentieth century the house of Concord and Victory for tea, gardens and are indicated on Stowe is a ‘landscape that has was transformed from a home coffee and cake. Open daily the map National Trust Stowe influenced all over the to a boarding school. between 11am and 5pm Western World for a quarter of a • Dog waste bags are available at • Picnics welcome anywhere @NTStowe The significance, understanding millennium’ and as we approach reception and appreciation of the gardens the thirtieth anniversary of Discovery Nature calls NT_Stowe at Stowe were lost to the more Trust management, restoration fashionable appeal of the continues apace. • Pick up a guide book from • Toilets are available at New Inn country house in the preceding the shop to reveal the stories • As Stowe is a Grade I listed If you’d like this information decades. By the 1980s the Spend a penny - behind the gardens and temples garden, we don’t have plumbing in an alternative format please gardens were overgrown, help us restore in the gardens but we do have subtleties in planting and • The National Trust is an House discretely sighted portaloos Stowe telephone 01280 817156. paths were lost and Stowe independent charity. • Stowe House is managed by marked on the map A monumental day out was unrecognisable from its All profits from our gift shop Stowe House Preservation Trust Photography: National Trust Images/ Martin Fletcher, Alan Novelli, John Millar, Colette Murray, Robin Simpson. eighteenth century splendour. and café go towards the and is home to Portrait of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, Richard Cosway/Bridgeman Images. Printed on 100% recycled paper. Please recycle this leaflet after use. © National Trust 2016. National Trust is an independent registered charity, number 205846.