Seven of the Nine Muses arrived and were lifted into position on their statue bases using a telehandler by the team from Cliveden Conservation Workshop.
Restoring Apollo and the Nine Muses to Stowe


Meet the Nine Muses
Recreating the location, setting and planting
The location of this statue group is shown on ‘A Plan of The Gardens of the Most Noble the Marquis of Buckingham at Stowe’ from 1797 where the statues are clearly shown as dots on either side of the Doric Arch. This extract from the 1797 plan shows that the positioning of the statues is planned to be part of this design around the Doric Arch at the edge of the glade. When realising that this glade still survived on the ground we decided to measure this and discovered that it has a radius of one chain.* This was an exciting moment as we realised that more of the original setting and design intent had survived later alterations than previously understood.
The extract from the 1797 shows that the positioning of the statues is planned to be part of this design around the Doric Arch at the edge of the glade. When realising that this glade still survived on the ground we decided to measure this and discovered that it has a radius of one chain.* This was an exciting moment as we realised that more of the original setting and design intent had survived later alterations than previously understood.
* The Gunters Chain is a distinctive measuring device used in land surveying or for land measurement.





