Context 166 - November 2020

C O N T E X T 1 6 6 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 0 41 JANE KENNEDY Conserving Stowe One of England’s grandest country houses, Stowe narrowly escaped demolition and has benefited from a preservation trust. It has now undergone major conservation works. Stowe was developed in phases from a 13-bay brick house, designed for Sir Richard Temple in the late 17th century byWilliam Cleare (Wren’s joiner and the builder of the great model for St Paul’s Cathedral). Successive generations developed it as a palace for entertaining, set in an exquisite and important landscape garden of vistas, follies and temples. In the 18th century the house was remod- elled by Vanburgh and Kent, and subsequently extended and embellished by Earl Temple, who lengthened the house and modified the north and south fronts. He consulted many architects, but clearly had a strong hand in the final designs and brought in continental craftsmen for the interiors. In the 19th century, his grandest descendant, the Duke of Buckingham, collected and embellished extravagantly for a visit by Queen Victoria in 1845. But he had overex- tended: much was sold in a great sale in 1848 and fortunes continued to dwindle. The family finally sold up, to a demolition contractor, in the 1920s, but fortunately Stowe was saved by an enterprising group of individu- als who bought the house and park, and adapted them for a school. Stowe School employed CloughWilliams Ellis as its architect and master planner, and the house was repaired, and new buildings were added with some tact and care. Maintaining the house and its extensive gar- dens became a burden for the school, despite excellent teaching based on the buildings and landscape, and the enthusiasm of hands-on teams of boys and staff who helped to maintain the gardens. In the 1980s the National Trust negotiated to take on the care of the gardens, and in 1997 the Stowe House PreservationTrust (SHPT) was set up to repair and re-present the house for the benefit of the nation. In 1999 SHPT was awarded a major Heritage Lottery Fund grant and Purcell was appointed as their architect. We were given a sizeable box of research papers and reports commissioned by the trust and largely undertaken by Inskip and Jenkins, who had looked after Stowe House and Gardens for some years before. This included a four-volume conservation plan, folders of early illustrations of the house and detailed research on the pathology of the building. The HLF grant had been offered for repairs The library ceiling on completion