RoutesRunning trails & routesUnited KingdomEnglandSouth East EnglandBuckinghamshireAylesbury ValeBuckingham
Stowe House – Lord Cobham's Monument loop from Buckingham
RoutesRunning trails & routesUnited KingdomEnglandSouth East EnglandBuckinghamshireAylesbury ValeBuckingham
Stowe House – Lord Cobham's Monument loop from Buckingham
Hard
62
runners
Stowe House – Lord Cobham's Monument loop from Buckingham
01:56
18.0km
150m
Running
Hard run. Very good fitness required. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels. The starting point of the route is right next to a parking lot.
Last updated: March 16, 2026
Tips
Temporary access restrictions
Includes segments with temporary access restrictions.
After 7.52 km for 6.21 km
Customers only
Waypoints
A
Start point
Parking
Get Directions
1
5.64 km
Stowe House
Highlight • Monument
Stowe House is a beautiful Grade I-listed country house, surrounded by wonderful parkland and majestic gardens. The gardens and park are owned by the National Trust and are open to the public, while Stowe House itself is the home of the independent Stowe School.
The estate has existed in various forms since the 16th century but it was in the 18th century that the powerful Temple-Grenville family built the lavish country house. It was said to be so grand that even Queen Victoria was taken aback by the splendour of its interior.
However, wild parties, scandal and excessive spending saw the Temple-Grenville's go from the richest family in England to the greatest debtors in the world. Fortunately for Stowe House, investors revived its fortunes in 1922, when the school was founded.
The estate has existed in various forms since the 16th century but it was in the 18th century that the powerful Temple-Grenville family built the lavish country house. It was said to be so grand that even Queen Victoria was taken aback by the splendour of its interior.
However, wild parties, scandal and excessive spending saw the Temple-Grenville's go from the richest family in England to the greatest debtors in the world. Fortunately for Stowe House, investors revived its fortunes in 1922, when the school was founded.
Tip by
2
7.99 km
Gothic Temple, Stowe Landscape Gardens
Highlight • Monument
Stowe has been copiously written about since 1700, both in official guides and in the impressions of its numerous visitors. Now in the care of the National Trust, the gardens are becoming ever better known and understood. Lord Cobham’s Temple of Liberty, as this Gothic building was provisionally known, was built in 1741. It was one of the last additions to the famous garden formed by Charles Bridgeman and his successor, William Kent. The designer of the Temple was James Gibbs, who had with Kent, succeeded Vanbrugh as chief architect at Stowe.
Tip by
3
8.40 km
Lord Cobham's Monument
Highlight • Monument
As John Martin Robinson suggests, this monument may look to modern eyes more like a lighthouse than a classical column. This appearance derives to a great extent from its octagonal, as opposed to cylindrical, shape and the exaggerated flutes in each of the eight faces. It is essentially a Doric column, however, though hollow with a spiral staircase leading to a platform in the belvedere at the top. It was completed by 1749, the year of Lord Cobham's death.
In fact, it was designed not only as a memorial to Lord Cobham, commissioned by his wife, but as a viewing tower from which one could see the entire garden (and, as Bevington remarks, parts of five counties). An eyecatcher in its own right, standing 115 feet tall, it can be seen not only from the Temple of Concord and Victory in the Grecian Valley but also from the Temple of Friendship at the southern end of Hawkwell Field. The Survey remarks that the monument "is similar to, and may have been inspired by, the column erected slightly earlier by the Duchess of Marlborough to her husband at Blenheim."
During extensive renovation in 2000-2001, the statue of Lord Cobham was returned to its original place atop the belvedere (it had been destroyed in 1957 when lightning struck it), and the entire structure was limewashed to give it an even pale yellow color and to protect the stone from the elements. The base of the Monument is decorated with stone lions on the four buttresses and with plaques displaying quotations from two of Alexander Pope's Moral Epistles -- one dedicated to Lord Cobham on the characters of men and the other dedicated to the Earl of Burlington on the proper use of riches. The two inscriptions read as follows:
And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath,
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death;
Such in those moments, as in all the past,
Oh, Save my Country, Heaven! shall be your last.
Consult the genius of the place in all;
That bids the waters rise, or gently fall;
That helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;
Calls in the country, catches op'ning glades,
Unites the woods, and varies shades from shades;
Nature shall join you; Time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at,---perhaps a Stowe.
faculty.bsc.edu/jtatter/cobham.html
In fact, it was designed not only as a memorial to Lord Cobham, commissioned by his wife, but as a viewing tower from which one could see the entire garden (and, as Bevington remarks, parts of five counties). An eyecatcher in its own right, standing 115 feet tall, it can be seen not only from the Temple of Concord and Victory in the Grecian Valley but also from the Temple of Friendship at the southern end of Hawkwell Field. The Survey remarks that the monument "is similar to, and may have been inspired by, the column erected slightly earlier by the Duchess of Marlborough to her husband at Blenheim."
During extensive renovation in 2000-2001, the statue of Lord Cobham was returned to its original place atop the belvedere (it had been destroyed in 1957 when lightning struck it), and the entire structure was limewashed to give it an even pale yellow color and to protect the stone from the elements. The base of the Monument is decorated with stone lions on the four buttresses and with plaques displaying quotations from two of Alexander Pope's Moral Epistles -- one dedicated to Lord Cobham on the characters of men and the other dedicated to the Earl of Burlington on the proper use of riches. The two inscriptions read as follows:
And you, brave Cobham, to the latest breath,
Shall feel your ruling passion strong in death;
Such in those moments, as in all the past,
Oh, Save my Country, Heaven! shall be your last.
Consult the genius of the place in all;
That bids the waters rise, or gently fall;
That helps th' ambitious hill the heav'ns to scale,
Or scoops in circling theatres the vale;
Calls in the country, catches op'ning glades,
Unites the woods, and varies shades from shades;
Nature shall join you; Time shall make it grow
A work to wonder at,---perhaps a Stowe.
faculty.bsc.edu/jtatter/cobham.html
Tip by
4
9.04 km
Palladian Bridge at Stowe
Highlight • Bridge
Nice bridge good for crossing water
Tip by
5
9.98 km
Temple of Venus
Highlight • Monument
The Guide to the Gardens points out that not only was this temple the first of William Kent's designs to be built in the gardens, completed in 1731, but that it serves to represent him along a terrace that pays tribute to four of Stowe's great architects (before it was given its present name, it was simply called Kent's Building).
A Bust at the Temple of Venus As Bevington reports, by 1738 there were busts in the four niches surrounding the door in the central block: these were of Nero, Cleopatra, Faustina, and Vespasian.
Underneath the Temple was a large chamber that was discovered in 1991 during the restoration process that both Bevington the Survey suggest was part of a hydraulic pump system that was intended to supply water to a fountain -- presumably the Octagon Lake guglio. The guglio never worked properly as a fountain, and Bevington suggests that the entire system was likely faulty.
faculty.bsc.edu/jtatter/venus.html
A Bust at the Temple of Venus As Bevington reports, by 1738 there were busts in the four niches surrounding the door in the central block: these were of Nero, Cleopatra, Faustina, and Vespasian.
Underneath the Temple was a large chamber that was discovered in 1991 during the restoration process that both Bevington the Survey suggest was part of a hydraulic pump system that was intended to supply water to a fountain -- presumably the Octagon Lake guglio. The guglio never worked properly as a fountain, and Bevington suggests that the entire system was likely faulty.
faculty.bsc.edu/jtatter/venus.html
Tip by
6
10.0 km
Octagon Lake
Highlight • Natural Monument
One of the first areas of the garden that visitors may encounter is the Octagon Lake and the features associated with it. The lake was originally designed as a formal octagonal pool, with sharp corners, as part of the seventeenth century formal gardens. Over the years, the shape of the pond was softened, gradually harmonising it within Stowe's increasingly naturalistic landscape.
Source: Wikipedia
Source: Wikipedia
Tip by
7
11.9 km
The Seasons Fountain, Stowe Gardens
Highlight • Monument
If you're going for all the monuments it's a great place to sit down
Tip by
8
12.0 km
Shell Bridge, Stowe Gardens
Highlight • Bridge
Eighteenth century shell-encrusted dam disguised as a bridge, formerly the site of a monument to Captain Cook.
Grade I. A dam in the Elysian Fields, disguised as a low bridge. c1740 by Kent. Stone dressings, rendering encrusted with shells. Five bays with low arches, central bay projecting and pedimented, 2 smaller pediments each side above piers. Captain Cook's Monument, standing on the bridge, is a small monument with portrait medallion dated 1778 which was moved to Duck Island in th 1990s.
The National Trust's Survey of Stowe undertaken in 1989 noted that the south front is encrusted with conch shells and that the overflow from the upper lake originally ran through channels in the centre and on either side creating a cascade. The abutments on either side may have supported a wooden footbridge giving views of the fake meander in the Styx and Worthies river.
Source: Buckinghamshire.gov.uk
Grade I. A dam in the Elysian Fields, disguised as a low bridge. c1740 by Kent. Stone dressings, rendering encrusted with shells. Five bays with low arches, central bay projecting and pedimented, 2 smaller pediments each side above piers. Captain Cook's Monument, standing on the bridge, is a small monument with portrait medallion dated 1778 which was moved to Duck Island in th 1990s.
The National Trust's Survey of Stowe undertaken in 1989 noted that the south front is encrusted with conch shells and that the overflow from the upper lake originally ran through channels in the centre and on either side creating a cascade. The abutments on either side may have supported a wooden footbridge giving views of the fake meander in the Styx and Worthies river.
Source: Buckinghamshire.gov.uk
Tip by
13.7 km
Viewpoint
Viewpoint
B
18.0 km
End point
Parking
Way Types & Surfaces
Way Types
9.01 km
3.57 km
2.00 km
1.65 km
782 m
547 m
395 m
Surfaces
6.55 km
5.57 km
2.16 km
1.93 km
1.34 km
404 m
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Elevation
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Highest point (140 m)
Lowest point (80 m)
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Monday 25 May
32°C
16°C
49 %
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Max wind speed: 10.0 km/h
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