Stowe Gardens

Stowe Gardens is Britain’s grandest landscape garden — 250 acres of lakes, valleys and picture-perfect views near Buckingham, dotted with more than 40 temples, monuments and follies. This is gardening on the scale of a kingdom: an entire idealised landscape created by the greatest designers of the 18th century, including a young Lancelot “Capability” Brown, who learned his trade here as head gardener and was even married in the little church hidden among the trees.

A Garden Full of Meaning

Stowe was never just a pretty view. Its creator, Lord Cobham, laid out the paths as a walk through his politics and morals — visitors still choose between the Path of Vice, the Path of Virtue and the Path of Liberty, each revealing its own temples and surprises. Highlights include the gorgeous Palladian Bridge, the Temple of British Worthies reflected in the water of the Elysian Fields, and the vast Grecian Valley, Capability Brown’s first great work.

Walks, Wildlife and Family Days

With miles of paths through garden and wider parkland, Stowe is a place to lose a whole day walking — free guided tours run several mornings a week if you want the stories behind the monuments, and dogs on leads are welcome throughout the garden and parkland. Children get trails, den-building and seasonal activities, and there are endless perfect picnic spots beside the lakes.

Visiting Stowe Gardens

Stowe is signposted off the A422 just outside Buckingham, with free parking at the New Inn visitor centre — a restored 18th-century coaching inn where visits have begun for nearly 300 years. The gardens are National Trust (members free); note that Stowe House itself, at the heart of the landscape, is run separately as a school and opens for its own tours with a separate charge. Steam fans can add the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre at Quainton for a fine county double.

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