Easy hikes and walks around Leckhampstead

The Fane of Pastoral Poetry is a small octagonal temple of ashlar stone, four sides pierced by semi-circular headed arches. The building originally had a steeply domed roof it is now maintained as a roofless ruin. The temple was built by Gibbs in about 1726-7 on the site now occupied by Queen Caroline's Monument and was known as the Gibbs building. It was originally surrounded by the eight Rysbrack British Worthies. Plans were prepared by Borra to convert it to a Temple of Diana but this was never carried out. It was demolished and re-erected in a simpler form on its present site in the mid 1760's. Also known as the Belvedere and in the sale catalogues as the Egyptian Building. Small roofless structure 1727/3 by Gibbs, as The Belvedere. Re-erected on present site 1760's. Ashlar stone with moulded cornice. Octagonal, 4 sides pierced by semi-circular headed arches, with keyblocks, stepped architraves and impost mouldings. Blank oculi in angled faces. In a glade in the wood at the far end of the Grecian Valley is the small open-sided temple or belvedere designed by Gibbs for Lord Cobham, and first set up as part of the early, western phase of the garden in September 1729. It was originally known simply as ‘Gibbs’s Building’ and stood on a mound (accommodating an ice-house) in an almost exactly opposite relationship to the house, to the south-west, where it provided a viewpoint towards the Rotondo and the Queen’s Theatre, and housed the series of busts by Rysbrack (Bacon, Hampden, Locke, Milton, Newton, Shakespeare, Queen Elizabeth and William III) which were later transferred to the Temple of British Worthies in the Elysian Fields. Gibbs’s Building was repositioned by Earl Temple in the 1760s to frame a view of Wolfe’s Obelisk, which he had recently set up outside the gardens to the north, and was rechristened the Fane of Pastoral Poetry. The building also provided framed prospects over the surrounding park, reached via the shady groves of the Grecian Valley. Van Nost’s lead figure of Thalia, the Muse of Pastoral Poetry, was placed just to the north of it. The statue was one of his series of Apollo and the Nine Muses which was removed from the South Vista in the 1740s (see p. 24), but she no longer survives at Stowe. The four terms once outside the Fane are now at Port Lympne. Statue - Muse of Pastoral Poetry - was installed on Tuesday the 4th December 2018. This statue is a direct copy of the c18th lead statue of Heroic Poetry located on the Grenville Column which is attributed to van Nost. Originally (1720s) this statue was locatd on the south front parterre. Source: https://heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk/HBSMR/MonRecord.aspx?uid=MNA130213

Situated about 330 ft (100 m) to the east of the Corinthian Arch, the inn was built in 1717 specifically to provide accommodation for visitors to the gardens. It was expanded and rebuilt in several phases. The inn housed a small brewery, a farm and dairy. It closed in the 1850s, then being used as a farm, smithy and kennels for deer hounds. The building was purchased in a ruinous condition by the National Trust in 2005. In 2010 work started on converting it into the new visitor centre, and since 2011 this has been the entrance for visitors to the gardens.[49] Visitors had formerly used the Oxford Gates. The New Inn is linked by the Bell Gate Drive to the Bell Gate next to the eastern Lake Pavilion, so called because visitors used to have to ring the bell by the gate to gain admittance to the property. Source: Wikipedia

From here it is not far to the Palladian Bridge.

From here you have a beautiful view of the landscape.

A very prominent Palladian bridge in the park, it is one of the highlights of this property.

Enjoyable stretch of jogging along the beautiful River Great Ouse that runs through Buckingham.

Meander along paved paths through the pretty Bourton Park. The park is home to a diverse eco-system featuring kingfishers, frogs, and otters.

Nice bridge good for crossing water