Stowe School

Stowe School is an independent boarding and day school near Buckingham in Buckinghamshire, but its spectacular campus is far older than the school itself. At its heart stands Stowe House, a Grade I-listed country house whose earliest surviving core was built around 1680 for Sir Richard Temple. The mansion was repeatedly enlarged and transformed during the 18th century, with architects including Sir John Vanbrugh, James Gibbs, William Kent and Giacomo Leoni contributing to the building, while the great south front was completed in the 1770s to a design associated with Thomas Pitt and Robert Adam. The surrounding landscape is equally important: Charles Bridgeman, Kent and Lancelot “Capability” Brown all worked at Stowe, and Brown developed some of the ideas that would later make him the most famous landscape designer in Britain. After the Temple-Grenville family’s fortunes declined, the estate was sold, and Stowe School opened in May 1923 with just 99 boys. It became fully co-educational in 2003 and today has around 900 pupils. Stowe House is managed by the Stowe House Preservation Trust and remains at the centre of the school, while the historic gardens and much of the surrounding parkland are cared for by the National Trust. Together, the mansion, its grand state rooms, classical façades, lakes, bridges, temples and extensive grounds provide an unusually varied filming location.

Stowe School and the surrounding Stowe estate have appeared in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Inspector Morse (1987–2000), Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993), The Avengers (1998), Vanity Fair (1998), The World Is Not Enough (1999), Proof of Life (2000), Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… (2001), Stardust (2007), The Wolfman (2010), X-Men: First Class (2011), Bill (2015), The Crown (2016–2023), Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018), Bridgerton (2020–) and ’83 (2021). Few locations demonstrate the flexibility of the estate quite as well: Stowe has been Nazi Germany, a Swiss bank, a Victorian scientific institution, a Spanish royal palace, fashionable London parkland, a Scottish family estate, a French war memorial and several fictional schools. Some productions use Stowe House itself, while others make use only of individual structures or areas within Stowe Gardens.

In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), the North Front of Stowe House becomes Berlin for one of the film’s most memorable comic encounters. Indiana Jones has travelled to Berlin after discovering that Elsa Schneider has taken his father’s Grail Diary. He recovers the diary from Elsa during a huge Nazi rally and book burning, only to be swept into the crowd as Adolf Hitler passes through. Rather than exposing him, Hitler takes the Grail Diary from Indy, assumes he is asking for an autograph and signs it before handing it back. The imposing façade of Stowe provides the background to the rally, which was filmed during two nights in July 1988 and dressed with Nazi banners, troops, crowds and the large book-burning set. Despite the scene being presented as central Berlin, no German location was involved.

In Inspector Morse (1987–2000), Stowe Gardens appear in the 1989 episode “Ghost in the Machine” as part of the grounds of the fictional Hanbury House. Morse and Lewis are called in after several valuable erotic paintings are stolen and the wealthy owner, Sir Julius Hanbury, disappears. During the investigation, Morse searches the estate and Sir Julius is eventually found dead in the family mausoleum, opening up a much more complicated case involving blackmail, infidelity and another suspicious death. Stowe provides the landscaped grounds through which the investigation unfolds, but not Hanbury House itself: the mansion seen in the episode is Wrotham Park in Hertfordshire. This is one of several cases at Stowe where different real locations were combined to create a single fictional estate.

In Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993), the Stowe estate appears in the first-series episode commonly known as “Jeeves Takes Charge” or “In Court After the Boat Race”. The Oxford Bridge in Stowe Gardens is used as part of the grounds of Ditteridge Hall. The main house representing Ditteridge Hall was filmed elsewhere, at Englefield House in Berkshire, making the bridge another example of the series assembling a fictional country estate from several real properties. The surviving location information is clear about the use of the Oxford Bridge but does not reliably tie it to one particular exchange between Bertie Wooster and the other characters, so it is safer not to assign a more specific action to the Stowe footage.

In The Avengers (1998), two of Stowe House’s most impressive state rooms are transformed into parts of Hallucinogen Hall, the country estate belonging to the villainous Sir August de Wynter. Emma Peel is captured and taken to the estate as Steed attempts to uncover de Wynter’s scheme to control the world’s weather. The Marble Saloon and Music Room at Stowe provide interiors of Hallucinogen Hall during the sequence in which Peel is being held prisoner. The fictional property is actually a patchwork of several English stately homes: Blenheim Palace supplies its principal exterior, while Syon House, Hatfield House and other locations contribute additional interiors. Stowe’s ornate rooms therefore appear to belong to a building whose exterior is many miles away.

In Vanity Fair (1998), Stowe Gardens leave the countryside behind and become fashionable London parkland. The BBC miniseries, adapted from William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel, uses the estate to represent Hyde Park and other London parks as Becky Sharp moves through the social world of early 19th-century Britain. The landscaped lawns, avenues and classical garden structures were well suited to period scenes in which characters meet, stroll and display themselves in public. Location records consistently identify Stowe as the series’ Hyde Park and London park setting, although they do not reliably isolate the Stowe footage to one particular conversation or episode, so a more specific scene attribution would be guesswork.

In The World Is Not Enough (1999), the Gothic Temple in Stowe Gardens becomes the chapel on the Scottish estate of the King family. Following the assassination of oil magnate Sir Robert King at MI6 headquarters, James Bond travels to Scotland and attends King’s funeral alongside M, other MI6 personnel and King’s daughter Elektra. It is here that Bond begins to become personally involved in protecting Elektra, who is believed to remain at risk from terrorist Renard. The Gothic Temple, an 18th-century garden building, is framed and dressed to resemble a remote Scottish chapel, while surrounding areas of Stowe stand in for the King estate. The Scottish setting continues at the nearby temporary MI6 headquarters in the story, but that building is actually Eilean Donan Castle in the Highlands, not Stowe.

In Proof of Life (2000), Stowe gets one of its more straightforward screen roles by playing an English boarding school. Early in the film, professional hostage negotiator Terry Thorne is seen watching his son play rugby at school, and the sequence was filmed at Stowe. The scene establishes Terry’s family life before the main story takes him to the fictional South American country of Tecala to negotiate the release of kidnapped engineer Peter Bowman. There is also a nice connection between the location and two future Superman actors. Sixteen-year-old Stowe pupil Henry Cavill was working as an extra during filming and approached Russell Crowe for advice about becoming an actor. More than a decade later, Cavill played Superman in Man of Steel (2013), with Crowe playing his biological father, Jor-El.

In Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham… (2001), Stowe School plays the appropriately grand fictional Manor House boarding school attended by the adult Rohan Raichand. The location is introduced during the cricket match at the beginning of Rohan’s adult storyline. With the result resting on him, Rohan takes his place at the crease and wins the crucial game for Manor House, establishing him as a confident and popular young man before he returns to his family and learns the full story behind the estrangement of his older brother Rahul. Stowe’s real cricket ground and school buildings make the setting particularly convincing because, unlike many of the film’s lavish residences and colleges, the location is actually functioning as a British boarding school.

In Stardust (2007), the Marble Saloon at Stowe House is transformed into the Royal Academy of Science in London for the film’s opening. The narrator explains that a strange letter has arrived from a young man named Dunstan Thorn, asking the scientists about the mysterious wall beside his village and whether another world might exist beyond it. The scientists dismiss his question as nonsense and send a polite reply, before the story moves to Dunstan himself and the wall that separates ordinary England from the magical kingdom of Stormhold. Stowe’s vast circular Marble Saloon, with its columns, domed ceiling and classical decoration, gives the Royal Academy an appropriately imposing Victorian atmosphere. The sequence is particularly fitting given that director Matthew Vaughn was himself educated at Stowe School.

In The Wolfman (2010), Stowe Gardens provide the bleak setting for the funeral of Ben Talbot. Lawrence Talbot has returned to his family home after learning of his brother’s disappearance and brutal death, bringing him back into contact with his estranged father Sir John Talbot and Ben’s fiancée Gwen Conliffe. The funeral was filmed beside the Temple of Ancient Virtue, one of William Kent’s classical garden buildings. For the production, the elegant 18th-century temple was deliberately made much less pristine: false ivy was added and the area was filled with heavy smoke and artificial mist, turning the normally picturesque landscape into the cold, mournful Victorian setting required by the film.

In X-Men: First Class (2011), the Music Room at Stowe House becomes the interior of a prestigious bank in Geneva. Erik Lehnsherr is travelling through Europe hunting Klaus Schmidt, the Nazi doctor who murdered his mother and who is now living under the name Sebastian Shaw. Erik enters the bank carrying a bar of Nazi gold and confronts a banker whom he believes can lead him to Schmidt. When the banker refuses to cooperate, Erik demonstrates his magnetic powers, threatening him through the metal in his watch and dental fillings until he reveals that Schmidt can be found in Villa Gesell, Argentina. Stowe provides the ornate bank interior, while the exterior of the same fictional Geneva bank was filmed at Somerset House in London.

In Bill (2015), Stowe House travels to Spain to become the Escorial Palace in Madrid, home of King Philip II. The comedy follows an unsuccessful young William Shakespeare who becomes caught up in an increasingly ridiculous Spanish conspiracy to assassinate Queen Elizabeth I. Stowe’s interiors and South Portico are used for Philip’s palace, where the king conducts his schemes and prepares the group of agents who will travel to England. The grand Neoclassical surroundings add an intentionally disproportionate sense of magnificence to the film’s comic version of the Spanish court, particularly as Philip treats his murderous political plotting with the same absurd tone that runs through the rest of the film.

In The Crown (2016–2023), Stowe is used for scenes set not in Britain but in France. The clearest appearance comes in the season-three episode “Dangling Man”, when Queen Elizabeth II attends a First World War remembrance ceremony in Rouen. She lays a wreath at a memorial represented by the Temple of Ancient Virtue in Stowe Gardens, before addressing the assembled crowd in front of the South Front of Stowe House. The combination works surprisingly well on screen, with two parts of the same Buckinghamshire estate standing in for separate elements of a French commemorative setting. Stowe was used elsewhere during the production of The Crown as well, but the Rouen sequence is one of the appearances that can be identified most precisely.

In Slaughterhouse Rulez (2018), Stowe School finally gets to play something close to itself, although the fictional school is considerably more dangerous. The buildings and grounds become Slaughterhouse, an elite and tradition-bound boarding school where working-class newcomer Don Wallace struggles to fit into its rigid social hierarchy. A controversial fracking operation on school land opens an underground passage and releases a pack of subterranean creatures, eventually turning the school into the centre of a full-scale monster attack. Stowe provides many of the recognisable school and campus locations, including establishing views that give Slaughterhouse its grand country-house appearance. The underground passages themselves were filmed at Chislehurst Caves, while woodland material was shot at Windsor Great Park, so the fictional campus again combines several real locations. There is an added connection to Stowe: director Crispian Mills and cinematographer John de Borman were both former pupils of the school.

In Bridgerton (2020–), Stowe Gardens provide one of the most elaborate locations in the first episode, standing in for London’s Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Basset, the Duke of Hastings, attend the spectacular nighttime entertainment after both have become frustrated by the expectations surrounding the marriage market. Their conversation leads to an arrangement that benefits them both: Simon will pretend to court Daphne, increasing her desirability to other suitors, while his apparent interest in her should discourage the ambitious mothers who are constantly pursuing him. They seal the arrangement by dancing together beneath the lights. For the sequence, a complete dance floor was built in front of Stowe’s Temple of Venus, along with a two-storey bandstand and banqueting area. Around two kilometres of festoon lighting, fireworks and other pyrotechnics transformed the garden into Vauxhall, and the dance itself was filmed in the early hours of the morning.

In ’83 (2021), Stowe School becomes part of the film’s recreation of the 1983 Cricket World Cup, in which India unexpectedly fought its way to victory under captain Kapil Dev. Stowe was one of several British cricket locations used for the match sequences, alongside grounds including the Nevill Ground and Lord’s. The production faced the obvious problem that modern cricket grounds no longer looked exactly as they had in 1983, so ordinary pitches were surrounded with large green screens and period stadiums and crowds were added digitally. One of the extras involved in the shoot recalled spending a full week filming at Stowe and described the recreation of the tournament’s semi-final cricket action on a regular ground surrounded by green screen, allowing the filmmakers to turn the location into Manchester’s Old Trafford on screen.

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