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Stowe landscaped gardens

Nearest town: Buckingham

Site type: estate

Access: Public

Church name: No Data

Diocese: No Data

County: Buckinghamshire

Country: England

Grid ref: SP6774237215

Lost yew site: No

Date visited: 22-Feb-14

Recorded by: Peter Norton

Protection & responsibility: National Trust

Yews recorded at this site: Ancient 4m-5m, Notable

Notes: Stowe probably refers to an ancient holy place of great significance in Anglo-Saxon times. It derives from the pre 7th Century word stow meaning a meeting place, but more specifically a building attached to a hermitage, monastery or church. The manor of Stowe predates the Norman conquest of England. The 2nd Baronet, Sir Peter Temple enclosed a deer park in 1651. The old village was probably abandoned at this time. The estate remained with the Temple-Grenville family until 1921. Now part of the National Trust estate, the gardens are open to the paying public. The 'Elysian Fields' were created as part of the garden expansion in the 1730s. In Magna Britannia (1806), in the grounds of the parish church 'was a large yew tree with a remarkable extent of spreading branches, which is now paled off, and stands within the Marquis of Buckingham's grounds'.