Amazing hike at the dog friendly Stowe Park

Stowe Park is one of my favourite parks in the UK, and as we found out, it is also dog friendly. The park is highly recommended if you are looking for a leisurely walk with fantastic views that you and your four-legged friends will love. 

Distance	Total Time	Difficulty
5.83 km	02:12	Easy

The Stowe Gardens in Buckinghamshire, together with the park, passed into the ownership of the National Trust in 1989. Before that, since 1330, the manor house was maintained by Osney Abbey, and it was then surrendered to the Crown in 1539.

The Stowe house took about 100 years to be completed, and what can be seen now in its exterior has not significantly changed since 1779.

Stowe gardens and park are Grade I listed, meaning they are of exceptional historical, architectural or national importance. They are described as a monument to English landscape gardening.

For me, the park is a beautiful place, spacious and with a fantastic vibe. Loads of families around the many paths, by the monuments and lakes. There are flocks of birds in and around the lakes and some cattle grazing in some areas. But every time I have been there, it does not feel crowded, such is the park’s size.

For more information about the park buildings and monuments, I will leave all the links about the estate, alongside the map and the full detail table, in the Post Notes at the bottom of the page.

In terms of the cost, the car park is free, but there is an admission fee of £13 per adult. The Stowe Gardens postcode is MK18 5EQ.

The Hike

We started the hike at the car park. It is quite a walk to the entrance, but it is already very pretty going through a beautiful tree avenue. There are dog waste bins at the entrance and other places along the hike, which was great to see.

Immediately after getting into the parkland, we could see the first lake opposite the Stowe House and had to stop to admire the picture-perfect scene. 

When we bought the tickets, we got a map, and that was our guide through the trail as there aren’t any waymarks around but since the walk is so easy and the monuments are so prominent, getting lost isn’t really an option in there.

The gang then turned left from there and followed the path by the Octagon Lake. We saw some swans by the lake, and the girls got too excited about them, so we had to move fast from there.

We then got to the top of the lake and went a bit off track to check the Elysian Fields monument.

From there, we moved back to the trail and started walking on the other side of the lake until we got to roughly the middle, where there is an arch structure called “The Sort of Secret” by the lakeshore. We had excellent views across the lake.

From there on we backtracked a bit, continued the trail seeing the Stowe House now to our left, and started moving north towards Queen’s Temple, where sheep kept a keen eye on us from behind a fenced area.

We kept following the path until we got to Lord Cobham’s Pillar and turned left, following the trail to the south, which took us to the Gothic Temple. This is our favourite spot in the Stowe Park. 

From there we went down the little hill towards the lake and Palladian Bridge. This area offers the best views on this hike, in my opinion, as you can see many monuments from the other side of the bridge.

After crossing the bridge, we continued following the path back to the entrance, where we left the park going back to the car park.

What I love most about Stowe Park is that there are some buildings, monuments or garden features to see at every step of the trail. I particularly loved learning a bit about the monuments from the leaflet given to us when we bought our tickets. It was a fun exercise trying to visualise the lives of the Cobham family in the estate.

It is a stunning place well worth spending time exploring. There were animals grazing, but they were generally separated by a fence or in the distance, so the dogs were not overexcited, which is excellent. It was an amazing hike at the dog friendly Stowe Park and highly recommended.

Cheers,

Ademar