Hello and welcome to another National Trust mini episode. Today I'm in the Sleeping Wood at Stowe and I'm here to meet Hannah, one of the gardeners on the team here to learn a little bit more about the sordid background of this little corner of the garden.
So where we're stood is the like the centre circle we call it. And as you look around you, there's a perfect circle around us with alleys coming off it, which is, is basically windy paths. So there's, there's six of these windy paths sort of snaking up around us in all directions. And the point of these is for it to feel quite disorientating. So they all look quite similar. They're, they're all planted up with trees and shrubs and then you've got the, the Herbaceous
Borders in there as well. So as you go along these, it's hard to know where you are. You keep getting glimpses through to other areas of the Sleeping Wood and you get these purposeful cut through so you can see other bits and it all adds to that feeling of- Of being in a bit of a dream, not really knowing where you are. This centre circle, we had the sleeping parlour standing here and that was meant to represent sort of Sleeping Beauty in her palace in the middle.
And this was just a nice small square building. But when you went inside, it was full of cushions and it was all luxurious and it was a perfect place to come and escape to after having maybe a bit too much food, a bit too much drink. And you can see that we're really quite close to the house. So it wasn't much of a staggering distance for people to come and escape into the gardens.
It has a sense of mischief, doesn't it? You know, it has a sense of you could possibly misbehave in here if you wanted to misbehave and the alleys are mysterious but also their escape routes in. You know, there you can kind of sneak off if you shouldn't be in here. But what's really striking me is this wonderful stone that's embedded into the grass by our feet. And it just simply says the sleeping parlour, since all things are uncertain, indulge thyself.
It's almost giving you permission while you're in this corner of the garden at Stowe and it's full of mystery. Hannah, we can see a scar of a foundation of the sleeping parlour that was here. And what, what's the story behind that?
They were forever moving buildings and monuments around in line with the fashions and the sleeping parlour was just knocked down. And thankfully for us, they have used the actual building to fill in the foundations. So we know a lot more about what the building was, how it looked. And they- in line with moving stuff around the outside of it
was decorated with these faces. And if you look around as now you can see the benches, sort of playing homage to this and they've actually decorated with faces. So we have three paths running around the garden. You have the path of vice, the path of virtue and the path of liberty and this side of the garden, it's the closest walk, you're getting your kicks instantly.
Whereas for something like the path of liberty, it's, it's the longest route around the garden, you've got the most treacherous footpaths and it's going to be the most challenging because liberty isn't easy and all the paths are designed to, to represent what it is that you're walking for. So where we are now is the path of vice. And that's why we have the sleeping parlour. And just around the corner from the sleeping wood we have also-
on the path of vice. We have the golden statue of Venus who is the goddess of love and she has stood in her rotunda overlooking the Sleeping Wood and the sleeping parlour in the middle.
Thanks for listening to this week's National Trust mini episode, join us next week for a full episode where we'll be in Mount Stewart. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on itunes or your chosen podcast app and please do, let us know what you thought of this episode and share your suggestions for future topics on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. We're @nationaltrust. You can also email us at podcasts@nationaltrust.org.uk Until then from me, Alan Power. Goodbye.