Stowe House restoration

When we arrived at Stowe House, I couldn't believe how big the gardens and the property was. Also I did not realise that since 1923 it has been a boarding school, Stowe School. 

We met Anna McEvoy, the House Custodian, and got a tour around some of the gardens. Unfortunately it was raining so the tour was quite short.

 

 

My room was on the top floor which had a good view over the grounds. The accommodation was a bit average to what I was expecting, because it is a boarding school, but I didn't mind.

 

On Wednesday morning, we were introduced to Nick Morris, the Operations Director and CEO of Stowe House, and he welcomed us. Then Anna gave us a tour of the interior of the house and informed us of its history. The house used to be a ducal Palace, a 'party house,' but by the start of the twentieth century it was at risk of being pulled down. In 1921 it was sold and converted into a school which saved it. 

In 2000 they began the process of restoring various sections of the house including the north front, marble saloon and south front. The marble saloon is amazing. It has a marble floor and marble benches and is often used for weddings. Also Anna told us that in the 1950s one of the school boys climbed up and placed a tennis ball on the dome in the ceiling, and it is still there. She pointed it out to us (unfortunately I didn't take any photos with my phone). The ceilings are Neo-Classical Style, dating from the mid-eighteenth century, except the front room which is Baroque style (below). She also told us that they have a lot of film studios coming to film here, like The Crown cast and crew were here for a week, and also the recent series of Masterchef.

 

There were so many rooms - the State Rooms, Library, Music Room, Marble Saloon, Temple Room and Dining Room. 

 

 

 

The Dining Room is yet to be restored. It is a bit tricky because the space is used by 800 kids plus staff most of the year (so approximately 1000 people) and so the restoration would disrupt usage of the space.

This was part of our task for the day, to get into groups and formulate a restoration campaign for the Dining Room, working out how to fundraise the project, raise awareness and promote it both during the restoration and afterwards.

After we had planned this, a few of us went for a walk around the gardens which were beautiful. There was another Palladian Bridge (like the one in Prior Park in Bath) and we saw lots of sheep and some squirrels. There are quite a lot of ancient temples scattered around the gardens. We also had a look inside the Stowe House Museum which was quite small and the Stowe School shop.

Then we had to get back to present our restoration campaigns to the CEO Nick Morris.