Stowe Landscape Gardens
Buckinghamshire, (MK18 5DQ)
Stowe, with its great house and park, is one of the supreme creations of the Georgian era and one of the most influential and famous of all the English gardens created in the 18th century. The first layout was formal and geometrical, as at Versailles, and adorned with many garden buildings by Vanbrugh, Gibbs and William Kent.
In the 1730s a small area, called Elysian Fields, was designed by Kent in a freer, more naturalistic style and it is this reaction against formality which gave birth to the ‘landscape’ garden – Britain’s most original contribution to European art.
With its ornamental lakes, glorious open hillsides and wooded valleys, and adorned by over 40 temples and monuments, Stowe Gardens are a wonderfully Arcadian setting for a wedding. The mile long Grand Avenue, past the Corinthian Arch, over the beautiful Oxford Bridge provide an impressive arrival for guests.
