page_title: Stowe House
section_title: The Elysian fields
hierarchical_section_title: Stowe House / Stowe Landscape Gardens / The Elysian fields
caption_attribution_description: English: Interior of Stowe parish church The nave and chancel of St Mary's church in Stowe Landscape Gardens.
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 Elysian Fields is to the immediate east of the South Vista; designed by William Kent, work started on this area of the gardens in 1734. The area covers about 40 acres (16 ha). There is a series of buildings and monuments surrounding two narrow lakes, called the river Styx, that step down to a branch of the Octagon Lake. The adoption of the name alludes to Elysium, and the monuments in this area are to the virtuous dead of both Britain and ancient Greece. The main species of trees originally planted included alder, elm, chestnut and pine also ivy was planted and encouraged to grow over dead tree-trunks to create a suitable melancholy mood. The buildings in this area are:
  Saint Mary's Church – located in the woods between the House and the Elysian Fields is Stowe parish church. This is the only surviving structure from the old village of Stowe. Dating from the 14th century, the building consists of a nave with aisles and a west tower, a chancel with a chapel to the north and an east window c. 1300 with reticulated tracery. Lancelot "Capability" Brown was married in the church in 1744. The church contains a fine Sir Laurence Whistler CBE etched glass window in memory of The Hon. Mrs. Thomas Close-Smith of Boycott Manor, eldest daughter of the 11th Lady Kinloss, who was the eldest daughter of the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. Thomas Close-Smith himself was the High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire in 1942, and died in 1946. Caroline Mary, his wife, known as May, died in 1972
  The Temple of Ancient Virtue
  built in 1737 to the designs of Kent, in the form of a Tholos, a circular domed building surrounded by columns. In this case they are unfluted Ionic columns, 16 in number, raised on a podium. There are twelve steps up to the two arched doorless entrances. Above the entrances are the words Priscae virtuti (to Ancient Virtue).  Within are four niches one between the two doorways. They contain four life size sculptures (plaster copies of the originals by Peter Scheemakers paid for in 1737, they were sold in 1921). They are Epaminondas (general), Lycurgus (lawmaker), Homer (poet) and Socrates (philosopher). The two interior inscriptions above the doors are: Charum esse civem, bene de republica merei, laudari, coli, diligi, gloriosum est; metui vero, & in odio esse, invidiosum, detestabile, imbecillum, caducum. (To be dear to our country, to deserve well of the State, to be praised, honoured and beloved, is glorious; but to be dreaded and hated is a matter of illwill, detestable, weak, ruinous); and Justutiam cile & pietatum, quae cum sit magna in parentibus & propinquis, tum in patria maxima est. Ea vita est in coelum, & in huc coetum eorum, qui jam vixerunt. (Maintain justice and thy relative duty; which, as it is great, when exercised towards our country. That life is the way of heaven and to this Assembly of those who have already lived).
  The Temple of British Worthies designed by Kent and built 1734–1735. Built of stone, it is a curving roofless exedra with a large stone pier in the centre surmounted by a stepped pyramid containing an oval niche that contains a bust of Mercury, a copy of the original. The curving wall contains 6 niches either side of the central pier. With further niches on the two ends of the wall and two more behind. These are filled by busts, half carved by John Michael Rysbrack these are John Milton, William Shakespeare, John Locke, Sir Isaac Newton, Sir Francis Bacon, Elizabeth I, William III and Inigo Jones the other eight are by Peter Scheemakers these are Alexander Pope, Sir Thomas Gresham, King Alfred the Great, The Black Prince, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, John Hampden and Sir John Barnard (Whig MP and opponent of the Whig Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole). There is a small pediment above each niche that breaks forward slightly from the wall. There are three broad steps following the curving wall. The choice of who was considered a 'British Worthy' was very much influenced by the Whig politics of the family, the chosen individuals falling into two groups, eight known for their action
caption: Saint Mary's Church, interior looking east into the chancel
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