page_title: Stowe House
section_title: The south facade
hierarchical_section_title: Stowe House / House / The south facade
caption_attribution_description: Stowe - The House - Lion sculpture
context_page_description: Stowe House is a grade I listed country house in Stowe, Buckinghamshire, England. It is the home of Stowe School, an independent school and is owned by the Stowe House Preservation Trust who have to date spent more than £25m on the restoration of the house. Stowe House is regularly open to the public. The gardens, a significant example of the English garden style, along with part of the Park, passed into the ownership of The National Trust in 1989 and are open to the public. The parkland surrounding the gardens is open 365 days a year. National Trust members have free access to the gardens but there is a charge for all visitors to the house which goes towards the costs of restoring the building. The gardens and most of the parkland are listed grade I separately from the House.
context_section_description: The showpiece of the House is the south facade overlooking the gardens. This is one of the finest examples of neoclassical architecture in Britain. The main front stretches over 460 feet (140 m). Divided into five major sections, these are: the central block around 130 feet (40 m) in width, the lower linking sections 75 feet (23 m) wide that contain on the west the State Dining Room and on the east The Large Library, then at the ends the two pavilions the same height as the central block about 90 feet (27 m) in width. The central block and the end pavilions are articulated at piano nobile level with unfluted Corinthian pilasters over 35 feet (11 m) tall which becomes a hexastyle portico supporting a pediment in the middle of the facade, there is a minor order of 48 Ionic columns over 20 feet (6.1 m) high that runs the length of the facade. The portico fronts a loggia that contains the doorway to the Marble Saloon, this is flanked by large niches that used to contain ancient Roman statues, between the columns of the portico used to be the marble sculpture of Vertumnus and Pomona by Laurent Delvaux now in the V&A. Above the niches is a large frieze on a Bacchic theme, this is based on an engraving in James Stuart's and Nicholas Revett's Antiquities of Athens of the frieze on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates. 
  There is a flight of thirty three steps the full width of the portico which descends to the South Lawn. The staircase has solid parapets either side that end in sculptures of Medici lions standing and resting a paw on a ball. These are the original lions dating from the late 1700s. They were sold in 1921 to Blackpool Corporation and had been standing in Stanley Park in Blackpool but were reinstated in 2013 in a swap deal that saw copies going to Blackpool. Either side of the portico are two tripartite windows separated and flanked by Ionic columns. These are enclosed with an arch that contains a carved Portland stone tondo in the tympanum with carvings of The four seasons, and is in turn flanked by twin Corinthian pilasters the same size as the columns of the portico. The facade is surmounted by a balustraded parapet, in the centre of the parapet of the east pavilion is a sculpture of two reclining figures of Ceres and Flora the corresponding figures on the west pavilion are of Liberty and Religion. The end pavilions each have three tripartite windows matching those on the central block, the tondos of which are each carved with a sacrificial scene. 
  The ground floor is lower than the floor above, about 15 feet (4.6 m) in height and visually acts as a base to the facade, it is of banded rustication with simple arched windows beneath each window on the upper floor. In 1790 a balustrade was added parallel to the façade that ran from the bottom of the steps the full length of the house and then returned at both ends, there are a series of 30 pedestals along the balustrade, that until their sale in 1921 were topped by bronze urns. These were replaced by replicas in 2013. This was probably added to keep visitors from the lower windows of the house, and formal flower beds were laid out in the area.
caption: Medici lion
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