Description
(1) The Queen's Temple is a large Neo-classical building on two floors. It has a Corinthian portico and steps on the south front and a curved Ionic portico on the north front.
Built in the mid 1740's by Gibbs in a much simpler form and known as the Ladies Temple. It was enlarged and embellished in the 1770's and dedicated to Queen Caroline, wife of George III. A fragment of Roman mosaic from Foscott Roman Villa was set in the floor in 1839. It is now used by the Music Department of the school.
(7) Pavilion of c1740 by Gibbs, remodelled c1770. Balustraded parapet, ashlar stone, rusticated to basement 3-bay corinthian portico on south approached by stone steps with balustrades. Glazed central opening, niches with urns each side. North front also has slightly projecting pedimented centre with curved Ionic portico, flanking niches. Interior: decorations by Valdre. Floor has Roman tesselated pavement moved from Foscott 1839-40.(RCHM II p.286 MON 1)
(8) Originally built as the feminine counterpart to the Temple of Friendship (see p. 38) at the opposite end of the Hawkwell Field circuit walk and called the ‘Lady’s Building’, the Queen’s Temple was probably designed by Gibbs around 1742 and completed about six years later. Its original form is shown in the early guidebooks (illustrated above); with a great room centred on a Palladian window over a rusticated basement with an open arcade in front, it must have resembled a small town hall. Inside the ‘prospect room’, Sleter painted murals describing feminine recreations, ‘Ladies employing themselves in Needle and Shell-work’ and ‘diverting themselves with Painting and Musick’ (Seeley guidebook, 1748).
Of Gibbs’s building, probably only the basement survived the radical remodelling in 1772–4, when the great composite portico (based on that of the Temple of Diana at Nîmes) and steps were added to the south front and the first floor remodelled as a single space, probably to the designs of Earl Temple’s cousin Thomas Pitt. Edward Batchelor’s bill of August 1778 for ‘Working and Laying the Circler Portico Ladys Temple’ must refer to the addition of the charming bow on the north front, which may also have been designed by Thomas Pitt.
Yet further alterations were made in 1790 to commemorate the recovery of George III from madness after devoted nursing by Queen Charlotte, to whom the temple was rededicated. (The 1st Marquess’s political position depended on the King’s good health.) The changes were described in the 1797 edition of Seeley’s guide:
The room is ornamented by Scaiola [scagliola] columns and pilasters, supporting a trunk-ceiling, taken from the design of the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome: At the West end is a Medallion of Britannia dejected, and with her spear reversed, and on the tablet the following inscription:
Desideriis icta fidelibus Quaerit Patria Caesarem. [Horace, Odes, iv, 5, 15–16] For Caesar’s life, with anxious hopes and fears, Britannia lifts to Heav’n a nation’s tears.
On the East-end is a Medallion of Britannia with a palm, and sacrificing to Esculapius, on the recovery of the King from his illness; and on the tablet the following inscription: “ O Sol pulcher! O laudande, Canam recepto Caesare felix. [Horace, Odes, iv, 2, 46–8] Oh happy day! With rapture Britons sing The day when Hea’n restore their fav’rite King!”
In the centre of this apartment is a magnificent setting figure of Britannia supporting a medallion of the Queen. — the figure is as large as life, and is placed upon a fluted pedestal, on which is the following inscription:
Charlottae Sophiae Augustae, Pietate erga Regem, erga Rempublicam Virtute et constantia, In difficillimis temporibus spectatissimae, D.D.D. Georgius M. de Buckingham. MDCCLXXXIX To the queen, Most respectable in the most difficult moments, For her attachment and zeal for the public service, George, M[arquess] of buckingham dedicates this monument. 1789.
On the walls of the centre compartment of this building are four medallions, representing 1. Trophies of Religion, Justice and Mercy. 2. Trophies of Agriculture and Manufacture. 3. Trophies of Navigation and Commerce. 4. Trophies of War.
Almost all of the sculptural decoration described by Seeley was executed in 1790 by Charles Peart, who had modelled the spectacular plaster triumphal procession in the frieze of the Marble Saloon in the house two years previously. The exception was the statue of Britannia, which is the only recorded work at Stowe by Joseph Ceracchi. In 1842 the 2nd Duke of Buckingham inserted in the centre of the floor a Roman mosaic pavement removed from the villa on his estate at nearby Foscott, which had been excavated in 1837–42 (Bucks County Museum has two mounted sections of pavement from Foscote which were donated by a Mr G.H. Harrison in 1918 [ref. nos. 1918.82.1 and 1918.83.1]).
The Queen’s Temple became the home of Stowe School’s Music Department. The columns of the portico weathered badly, and so in 1933–4 the School carried out repairs under the direction of Fielding Dodd and funded by an appeal, but the need for a further campaign is now obvious.
In the parish itself there was no record or any trace of the Roman occupation; but at Foscott, somewhat north of the Buckingham and Stony Stratford road, there was an extensive Roman villa, with its baths supplied by spring water , laid on through large leaden pipes, and a large walled tank in front of the villa, with an oak-pile foot bridge across it about four and a half feet wide, and where, also, in 1837-8, was found a good specimen of a tesselated pavement, unfortunately lost by injudicious attempts at removal at a bad season of the year. The removal was left to the workmen, and nothing a foot square of it was brought home. The only record of it was a drawing which the speaker made of it when a boy. A smaller tesselated pavement was found in 1839-40, which was damaged only in one portion, and he was fortunate to remove this and place it in the centre of the Queen's Temple. In the gardens there were also found a specimen of the tile flues with which the rooms were heated, fragments of pottery, stone pillars, and one roofing tile of the old villa; all these objects were preserved in the Stowe museum. (12)
At the meeting of the Oxford Ashmolean Society, held on Monday, Feb. 13, the Marquis of Chandos exhibited a Plan of the Excavations of a Roman Villa at Foxcote, near Buckingham, together with several coins and some fragments of fossil coal found at the same place. The excavations are situated about a mile and a half from Buckingham, on the north of the road leading to Stony Stratford, at the foot of the hill, and about 100 yards from the high road. Until the year 1837 the farmers in the neighbourhood had been in the habit of digging up the old foundations whenever they were in want of stone, at which period the layer (sic) of the two baths was discovered. The last excavation took place in 1842-43. The tank marked A in the plan contains a spring which ran through wooden trunks of trees to a larger tank. When first discovered the walls were covered with a red stucco, which, however, fell off during the second year of its exposure to the air. The greatest height of any of the remaining walls did not exceed three feet above the floor, and were generally not more than one foot. A leaden pipe communicates from the larger bath to a small circular place, which seemed to have contained some vessel for heating water. In another room was found a small stone column, and near it a large salver, nearly 16 inches in diameter. It appears to be composed of tin, with a slight proportion of silver, and in the same room was found a small vessel, apparently of the same metal, but much more corroded. A large square tesselated pavement was found in the adjacent room, and other fragments in a less perfect condition. The general thickness of the walls was 2 ft. 3 in. for the main walls, and 1 ft. 8 in. for the remainder. The courses were not regular in thickness, varying from three to ten inches. The coins exhibited consist of copper coins of Constantine, Commodus etc. (13)
The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos still continues the excavations of the Roman villa at Fescote, Bucks. on the farm of Mr. Roper. Many interesting discoveries have been made, amongst which is a wooden spout or tube, which, when uncovered at the top, threw up water the height of several feet. Oak piles have also been taken out, the wood of which, is perfectly sound. (14)