Creation of the Trust
Stowe House is on the current English Heritage list of buildings at risk, and was on the World Monuments Fund list (2002) for the 100 most endangered sites of worldwide significance. His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, who honoured Stowe House with a visit in May 2001, expressed approval for 'restoring what is certainly one of Britain's finest eighteenth-century houses and conserving it in perpetuity for the benefit, not only of this nation, but for all lovers of civilization, taste, fine architecture and the English landscape'.
The Creation of Stowe House Preservation Trust
Stowe is acknowledged as one of Europe's outstanding historic sites. Having been saved from certain post-war destruction by the creation of Stowe School in 1923, the buildings were adapted for use by a modern public school. Stowe's well-known landscape gardens were transferred to the National Trust in 1989 when the School was unable to maintain them and the partnership between Stowe School and the National Trust began.
The governors of Stowe School had thought that the next step, after the gift of the gardens to the nation by the School, was for Stowe House to pass to the National Trust. This was formally proposed in early 1996 but the National Trust felt unable to take responsibility for the restoration of the house. Recognising that the house was in dire need of restoration and that the School had insufficient funds, an alternative way to resolve the problem had to be identified.
The problem was one of heritage restoration and the obvious source of funding was the Heritage Lottery Fund. Stowe School, with education as its object, was ineligible to apply to the Heritage Lottery Fund for a grant. In answer to this situation the Stowe House Preservation Trust was formed on 30 June 1997, with the principal aim of restoring and preserving Stowe House for the benefit of the nation and the public.
The Stowe House Preservation Plan aims to:
- renovate and conserve all the external fabric of Stowe House to ensure the continuation of this heritage asset for the nation;
- expose and upgrade parts of Stowe House currently degraded by modern development;
- balance the renovation and conservation with the requirements of visitors and users;
- best present Stowe House as the central temple in the Stowe Landscape Gardens;
- restore the state rooms at piano nobile level, and the Gothic Library, ensuring the maximum benefits for visitors;
- secure the internal fabric from damage and the external elements by restoring roofs, together with renovating services to minimise the potential of damage from leaking pipework and from electrically-caused fires.
So far, Phase One and Phase Two have been successfully completed at a cost of just over £15m.
The long term goal of the partners at Stowe is to return the site to its former glory, whilst protecting the interests of each partner as changes are made. In the short term, this involves restoring the house so that it becomes, as it was designed, the principal temple in Stowe's gardens, and in re-uniting and restoring the gardens. In the longer term, the Stowe House Preservation Trust, the School and the National Trust will work together to further the restoration of Stowe as a historic masterpiece. The visitor experience has been enhanced through the development of a National Trust Visitors' Centre located at New Inn, by the Corinthian Arch, the original eighteenth-century entrance to the gardens. The development of historic Stowe will involve each partner respecting the interests of the others and negotiating suitable solutions to specific challenges that arise within the overall joint goal.