The Main Approaches

Stowe Gardens have seen tourists and daytrippers for two hundred years, complete with guidebooks and visitor accounts. Yet no public entrance or standard route to the house was ever established.

Main features of the Main Approaches

Corinthian Arch was created as a symbol of wealth and influence rather than an entrance way. In fact, the only person known to have passed through it en-route to the house was Queen Victoria, for whom it was specially opened.

The Grand Avenue with its Buckingham Lodges added in about 1805, is one and a half miles long. It could have become a housing estate, as it was parcelled up as building plots for the big sell-off of 1921. Fortunately, a group of Old Etonians raised the funds to buy it as a present for the new school.

Oxford Avenue follows the old Roman road from Bicester to Towcester.

The Oxford Gates had their original ironwork removed for the war effort in the 1940s. In a twist, their recent replacements were made from wrought iron salvaged from a German battleship.

The Oxford Bridge crosses a serpentine lake transformed from an old mill pond. It was once the subject of a huge row between the Marquess of Chandos and Sydney Pierrepont, owner of a nearby estate who used it as a shortcut. It resulted in the Marquess removing the centre section of the bridge to keep his "trespassing" neighbour out.  

The Boycott Pavilions built around 1728, were named after the old hamlet of Boycott, halfway along the Oxford Avenue.

The Statue of George I dressed as Marcus Aurelius, stands on the North front of the House. It was George I who made Sir Richard Temple a Viscount in 1718.

The Ha-Ha at Stowe, built by Charles Bridgeman as a symbol of grandeur, was probably the longest ever built.