On Wednesday, we visited the Stowe School (located in Buckingham, England), an extravagant boarding school in the English countryside, and I must say I am ambivalent about it at best. The main building is massive and massively ornate: built in the 1730s, transformed into a palace in 1822, sold as an estate in 1921, and turned into a boys' boarding school soon after, Stowe is the embodiment of the long-lasting and insidious English class system. It really is one of the most extravagant buildings I have ever seen.
Here are some pictures of the North entrance to the house, which is where guests enter.
The rooms there are opulent to the point of gaudiness. The library, which is extremely small, has hundreds of rosettes on the ceiling, all of which are made of 23.5 karat gold. We were told the ceiling, which was redone recently, cost 86,000 pounds, 23,000 of which went to the rosettes alone.
There are ornate sculptures and wall-length paintings in every room, and the rooms themselves are massive. I would estimate my own home could fit into the cafeteria twice.
The home itself is on a large estate, as you can see from these shots from behind the house.
There are miles and miles of open land, much of which is covered in grazing sheep, which was my favorite part--not that that is should be shocking. After our tour of the library, we were given about two hours to wander the estate. I took a very long walk, going all the way to the arch you can faintly make out in the previous pictures. Here are a few from my stroll, including the sheep.
I do not mean to imply the estate was "bad" necessarily--the estate is beautiful--but like a strong perfume, Stowe is too beautiful, too overpoweringly beautiful, and can cause physical symptoms of revulsion. Indeed, I felt enthralled by the beauty of Stowe, but simultaneously sickened by its excess. I could not help thinking about the lower classes and exploitation upon which this school was built. To attend this school, one must pay 33,000 pounds per year--roughly $57,000--which is more than many people pay each year to attend college. For many people that far exceeds a year's salary. The students here are in the highest crust of the aristocracy, and I'm sure many of them were born into histories of wealth. It was truly discomfiting to look at all of that opulence and then think about the estate's history. Much like the house on Downton Abbey, Stowe went through periods in which it lost money, most notoriously in 1848 when the duke spent the estate into bankruptcy. A similar fate occured in 1917 when the heir to the estate died in World War I and the estate ran out of money, leading the heiress to sell it lock, stock, and barrel. This history of bankruptcy and selling, I think, is owing to the fact that these estates don't create or work toward anything--nothing other than sustaining their own wealth and status. The Stowe School is emblematic of this in that it is a wealthy school for wealthy people to ensure they maintain their wealth.
In spite of these reservations, I did enjoy wandering the estate on my own later. The librarians were also very kind and eager to discuss the sheer joy they experience working there.
Considering it is the Fourth of July, and after learning more British history, I feel proud to be an American. We have a class system badly in need of reform, for certain; however, we do not have a socially ingrained legacy of titles and monarchy. The older social structure of Britain depended on titles: A duke or earl would own land, and the lower ranks of society would tend to all of the needed jobs; they worked to serve and preserve the aristocracy. Much like slavery and the genocide of American Indians in the United States, it is essential to remember England's legacy of colonialism and class warfare, two principles upon which much of their culture is founded. Visiting Stowe today, more than anything else, really made me think about these issues. The house and estate were beautiful, but I could not help looking askance at the history and purpose of it all.
With all of this in mind, I am grateful to have had this trip on the eve of the Fourth because it has really impressed upon me the meaning of the American Revolution. In spite of all our problems, America does have a different mind set about class and individualism. In creating the Constitution, we not only did away with the medieval traditions of earls, dukes, and monarchy, but also created a new kind of selfdom, the essence of which is one's birth place is not one's destiny. As the Fourth of July comes upon us and I am in Great Britain, I will continue to ponder these thoughts.
Love,
Laura
