[26] Vincenzo Valdrè was his architect and built a few new structures such as The Menagerie, with its formal garden and the Buckingham Lodges at the southern end of the Grand Avenue, and most notably the Queen's Temple.

[29] In 1862, Richard Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos returned to Stowe and began to repair several areas of the gardens, including planting avenues of trees.

Vitae imitatio Consuetudinis speculum Comoedia Comedy is the imitation of life, and the glass of fashion Ingenio Acri, faceto, expolito, Moribusque Urabnis candidis, facillimis, Gulielmi Congreve, Hoc Qualecunque desiderii sui Solamen simul & Monumentum Posuit In the year 1736, COBHAM erected this poor consolation of as well as Monument of, his loss of the piercing, elegant, polished Wit and civilized candid most unaffected Manners of William Congreve These pavilions have moved location during their history.

Raised on a low podium they are reached by a flight of eight steps, they are pedimented of four fluted Doric columns in width by two in depth, with a solid back wall and with coffered plaster ceiling.

[58] The buildings in this area are: Built of stone erected in 1768 for the visit of Princess Amelia, probably to the design of Thomas Pitt, 1st Baron Camelford, is a simple arch flanked by fluted Doric pilasters, with an elaborate entablature with triglyphs and carved metopes supporting a tall attic.

[64] The monument consists of an unfluted Corinthian column on a plinth over 30 ft (9.1 m) high that supports the Portland stone sculpture of the King which is a copy of the statue sold in 1921.

[63] The pillar has this inscription from Horace's Ode 15, Book IV: Crevere Vires, Famaque & Imperi Porrecta Majestas ad ortum Solis ab Hesperio Cubili Custode rerum Cæsare

Under the care of Cæsar's scepter'd hand, With strength and fame increas'd, this favour'd Land The Majesty of her vast Empire spread, From the Sun rising to his Western bed.

[79] The inscription above her bust, which praises her leadership, reads: Who confounded the Projects, and destroyed the Power, that threatened to oppress the Liberties of Europe... and, by a wise, a moderate, and a popular Government, gave Wealth, Security, and Respect to EnglandDesigned by Kent, and finished by 1739, is actually a dam disguised as a bridge of five arches and is decorated with shells.

The order used is Tuscan, and is surmounted by a statue of Calliope holding a scroll inscribed Non nisi grandia canto (Only sing of heroic deeds); there is a lengthy inscription in Latin added to the base of the column after it was moved.

To quote John Martin Robinson: 'to the Whigs, Saxon and Gothic were interchangeably associated with freedom and ancient English liberties: trial by jury (erroneously thought to have been founded by King Alfred at a moot on Salisbury Plain), Magna Carta, parliamentary representation, all the things which the Civil War and Glorious Revolution had protected from the wiles of Stuart would-be absolutism, and to the preservation of which Lord Cobham and his 'Patriots' were seriously devoted.

[101] Built as a pavilion to entertain Lord Cobham's friends it was originally decorated with murals by Francesco Sleter including on the ceiling Britannia, the walls having allegorical paintings symbolising friendship, justice and liberty.

They are: Sunna (Sunday), Mona (Monday), Tiw (Tuesday), Woden (Wednesday), Thuner (Thursday), Friga (Friday) and a Saxon version of Seatern (Saturday).

An L-shaped area of lawns covering about 60 acres (24 ha), was formed by excavating 23,500 cu yd (18,000 m3) of earth by hand and removed in wheelbarrows with the original intention of creating a lake.

It is raised on a podium with a flight of steps up to the main entrance, the cella and pronaos is surrounded by a peristyle of 28 fluted Roman Ionic columns, ten on the flanks and six at each end.

Above the door is an inscription by Valerius Maximus: Quo Tempore Salus eorum in ultimas Ausustias deducta nullum Ambitioni Locum relinquebat The Times with such alarming Dangers fraught Left not a Hope for any factious Thought The interior end wall of the cella has an aedicule containing a statue of Liberty.

[112] Located in a grove of trees at the eastern end of the Grecian Valley, at the north-east corner of the gardens, the structure is a small belvedere designed by James Gibbs in 1729.

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.

[128] The buildings in this area are: 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.

In 1758 the architect Giovanni Battista Borra altered them, replacing them with the lead domes, with a round dormer window in each face and an open roof lantern in the centre.

[147] Stowe School had given the National Trust a protective covenant over the gardens in 1967, but the first part they actually acquired was the 28 acres (11 ha) of the Oxford Avenue in 1985, purchased from the great-great-grandson of the 3rd Duke, Robert Richard Grenville Close-Smith, a local landowner.

[151] The central piers were designed by William Kent in 1731, for a position to the north-east between the two Boycott Pavilions,[152] they were moved to their present location in 1761, and iron railings added either side.

[181] He had this to say: Stowe is composed of very beautiful and very picturesque spots chosen to represent different kinds of scenery, all of which seem natural except when considered as a whole, as in the Chinese gardens of which I was telling you.

The master and creator of this superb domain has also erected ruins, temples and ancient buildings, like the scenes, exhibit a magnificence which is more than human.Another francophone guide was published by Georges-Louis Le Rouge [fr] in 1777.

[191] They were followed by William Kent, James Gibbs and then by Capability Brown, who was appointed head gardener at Stowe at the age of 25, and later married in the estate church.

[194] Georges-François Blondel may have undertaken work on the Queen's Temple,[195] while Vincenzo Valdrè designed the Oxford Gate lodges, the base of the Cobham Monument and may have been responsible for the Menagerie.

[210] The landscape was to be a "sermon in stone",[211] emphasising the perceived Whig triumphs of Reason, the Enlightenment, liberty and the Glorious Revolution, and 'British' virtues of Protestantism, empire, and curbs on absolutist monarchical power.

[213] Praising the "grandeur of [its] overall conception", John Julius Norwich considered that the garden at Stowe better expressed the beliefs and values of its creators, the Whig Aristocracy, "than any other house in England.

[201] Contemporary satire reflected the role the gardens played in political life by portraying caricatures of the better-known politicians of history taking their ease in similar settings.

[228] The full title of the 1st edition (1731) was An Epistle to the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Burlington, Occasion'd by his Publishing Palladio's Designs of the Baths, Arches, Theatres, &c. of Ancient Rome.