As Mr C and I were leaving the hotel after breakfast we passed the gentleman I had been chatting to the evening before . We exchanged pleasantries and wished each other well for for the remainder of our respective travels. After the conversation Mr C and I made our way to Bowood House, taking the scenic route due to faulty navigating 
The house is home to the Marquis and Marchioness of Lansdowne and has been open to the public since 1975. Whilst developing the house and gardens they have tried to provide something of interest for all ages whilst maintaining its historical distinction. I certainly enjoyed the visit.
The house has many interesting exhibits, paintings and artifacts. One of the ante-rooms to the library used to be a laboratory. This was where Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen gas on 1st August 1774. Subsequently the laboratory was used by Dr Jan Ingenhousz who discovered photosynthesis in plants and worked on inoculation against smallpox.
Of course I especially loved the gardens with their many styles and tiers. At one end of the garden are some ornamental steps which originally had a statue of a river god above them. This has been replaced by a striking female nude, which was commissioned by Lansdowne in 1978.
The house is surrounded by parkland which was designed by Capability Brown. It was lovely to walk down to the lake where there was a lovely view of the Doric temple. Tucked out of view just around the corner at the end of the lake is a water cascade and a hermits cave. There was even an arboretum which made up for the rained off visit to Westonbirt.
After the nice relaxing visit to Bowood there was a bit of time to spare before dinner so a trip to see the white horse at Westbury seemed like a good idea. That was until the slow trog through Devizes. Firstly there was a lot of traffic and also there seemed to be some sort of police emergency going on with sirens all over the place. I had to do emergency stops on two occasions to let speeding police vehicles get by.
Well the hill at Westbury was as cold as ever, the horse as big as ever, and the view as spectacular as ever if you ignore the cement factory which sort of spoils the landscape a bit.
In the evening we dined looking out over the market square watching ‘Johnny Hot Rod’ zooming around in his fiat.
8th June 2009
Oh, I do love your blog. I love how you inspire my wanderlust and determination to explore more of England. This place looks fascinating and I love how many big names are associated with it.
Thank you for your kind words
This is a lovely area to visit
From the architecture the gardens look enticing. Bowood was always on the list of my South West travels in the last 7 – 15 years but I never actually made it. The temple looks familiar from the promotional leaflet at the time.
I think you would enjoy a visit there