Stowe is a small village located in Buckingham, England. In 1589, John Temple purchased the Stowe Manor and estate, the gardens were later expanded
and swallowed three nearby villages: Boycott, Dadford, and Lamport. In 1712 the village consisted of only 180 residents, when it expanded the only original building
that remained was Stowe Church.1
By the 1830s, some areas of Stowe were not even 100 years old. After the Temples,
the next tenant of the estate was the 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. The duke
was very poor at managing money and borrowed a very large sum in order to buy new
furniture and repair the estate upon a royal visit by Queen Victoria in 1845. It was the 3rd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos that saved the estate from ruin in
the 1860s. Stowe was sold after the First World War.2