page_title: Stowe House
section_title: The western garden
hierarchical_section_title: Stowe House / Stowe Landscape Gardens / The western garden
caption_attribution_description: Queen Caroline's Monument at Stowe Park, Buckinghamshire
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: Is to the immediate west of the South Vista, including the Eleven-Acre Lake. This area of the gardens was developed from 1712 to 1770s when it underwent its final landscaping. The Eleven-acre lake was extended and given a natural shape in 1752. In the woods to the north-west in 2017 the National Trust recreated the lost sculpture of the Wrestlers in 2018 the paths surrounding the sculpture were recreated and the Labyrinth around them replanted with 3,500 shrubs including magnolia, laurel, box, yew, spindle and hazel. Within the labyrinth are an outdoor skittle alley and a rustic swing. Also in this area in the woods to the north of the lake but on the east side is the Sleeping Wood designed by Bridgeman, at the heart of which use to stand the Sleeping Parlour being built in 1725 to a design by Vanbrugh, this was inspired by Charles Perrault's tale of Sleeping Beauty. Pegg's Terrace is a raised avenue of trees that follows the line of the south ha-ha between the Lake Pavilions and the Temple of Venus. Warden Hill Walk, also a raised avenue of trees is on the western edge of the gardens, the southern part of which serves as a dam for the Eleven Acre Lake, links The Temple of Venus to the Boycott Pavilions. The buildings in this area are:
  The Rotondo designed by Vanbrugh and built 1720–1721, this is a circular temple, consisting of ten unfluted Roman Ionic columns raised up on a podium of three steps. The dome was altered by Borra in 1773–1774 to give it a lower profile. In the centre is a statue of Venus raised on a tall decorated plinth. The current sculpture is a recent replacement for the original and is gilt.
  Statue of Queen Caroline this takes the form of a Tetrapylon, a high square plinth surmounted by four fluted Roman Ionic columns supporting an entablature which in turn supports the statue of Queen Caroline on its pedestal around which is inscribed Honori, Laudi, Virtuti Divae Carolinae (To honour, Praise and Virtue of the Divine Caroline). Probably designed by Vanbrugh.
  The Temple of Venus dated 1731 this was the first building in the gardens designed by William Kent. Located in the south-west corner of the gardens on the far side of the eleven-acre lake. The stone building takes the form of one of Palladio's villas, the central rectangular room linked by two quadrant arcades to pavilions. The main pedimented facade has an exedra screened by two full and two half Roman Ionic columns, there are two niches containing busts either side of the door of Cleopatra & Faustina, the exedra is flanked by two niches containing busts of Nero and Vespasian all people known for their sexual appetites. The end pavilions have domes. Above the door is carved VENERI HORTENSI "to Venus of the garden". The interior according to the 1756 Seeley Guidebook was decorated with murals painted by Francesco Sleter the centre of the ceiling had a painting of a naked Venus and the smaller Compartments were painted with a variety of intrigues. The walls had paintings with scenes from Spenser's The Faerie Queene. The paintings were destroyed in the late 18th century. Reverend John Wesley, who visited in 1779, said the paintings were "lewd". The ceiling frieze had this inscription by Catullus:
  The Hermitage designed c1731 by Kent, heavily rusticated and with a pediment containing a carving of panpipes within a wreath, and a small tower to the right of the entrance.
  Dido's Cave is little more than an alcove, probably built in the 1720s, originally decorated with a painting of Dido and Aeneas. In c.1781 the facade was decorated with tufa by the Marchioness of Buckingham. Her son the 1st Duke of Buckingham turned it into her memorial by adding the inscription Mater Amata, Vale! (Farewell beloved Mother). The designer is unknown.
  The Artificial Ruins & The Cascade constructed in the 1730s the cascade links the Eleven Acre Lake which is higher with the Octagon Lake. The ruins are a series of arches above the cascade built to look ruinous.
  The Menagerie of stone built c1781 probably to the designs of Valdrè. Hidden in the woods to the west of the south
caption: The Statue of Queen Caroline
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