A rostral doric column (one decorated with the beaks of Roman war ships) topped with a lead statue, possibly by Nost, representing Heroic poetry.
A rostral doric column (one decorated with the beaks of Roman war ships) topped with a lead statue, possibly by Nost, representing Heroic poetry. Erected originally in the Grecian Valley in about 1748 in honour of Captain Thomas Grenville, Lord Cobham's nephew, who was killed in action. The original statue was of Hercules but this was removed when the column was moved to the Elysian Fields in the 1750's. The statue of Heroic Poetry is one of the nine muses which originally adorned Bridgeman's parterre in front of the house.
Rostral doric column c1748, moved to Elysian Fields 1750's surmounted by statue of Heroic Poetry, one of the Nine Muses (by Nost?) which stood round Bridgeman's earlier parterre in front of the house.
Capt. Thomas Grenville, RN, was one of Lord Cobham’s nephews, the son of his sister and heir Hester Grenville and the brother of his eventual successor Richard Grenville, Earl Temple. In 1747 Capt. Grenville was fatally wounded while commanding the Defiance under Anson in the battle against the French off Cape Finisterre. He was buried in the church at Wotton, the Grenville family seat, and Lord Cobham raised this column in his memory at Stowe – the first embodiment of the union of the two families that was to take place after his own death in 1749.
The Grenville Column initially stood to the north of the Temple of Concord. It is a rostral column (so called because of the ships’ prows, or rostra, that protrude from its shaft), and originally supported a suitably heroic figure of Neptune flourishing a ‘splinter of the ship’, according to Lady Newdigate. Its designer is unknown, but since it is so closely based on antique sources, it may have been devised by Capt. Grenville’s brother Richard (later Earl Temple).
In 1756 Earl Temple moved the column to its present position in the Elysian Fields, adding an inscription composed by his cousin Lord Lyttelton:
Sororis suae filio, THOMAE GRENVILLAE Qui navis praefectus regiae, Ducente classem Britannicam Georgio Anson, Dum contra Gallos fortissime pugnaret, Dilacerate navis ingenti fragmine Femore graviter percusso, Perire, dixit moribundus, omnino satius esse, Quam inertiae reum in judicio sisti; Columnam hanc rostratam Laudans & maerans posuit Cobham. Insigne virtutis, ehu! rarissimae Exemplum habes; Ex quo discas Quid virum praefectura militari ornatum Deceat M.DCC.XLVII
As a Monument to Testify his Applause and Grief Richard Lord Viscount Cobham Erected this naval Pillar to the Memory of his Nephew Captain grenville; Who, commanding a Ship of War in the British Fleet Under Admiral Anson, In an Engagement with the French, was mortally wounded in the Thigh by a Fragment of his shattered Ship. Dying, he cried out, ‘How much more desirable it is thus to meet Death, than suspected of Cowardice to fear Justice!’ May this noble instance of Virtue prove instructive to an abandoned Age, and teach Britons how to act In their Country’s Cause!
In its new position, the statue of Neptune on top of the column was replaced with John van Nost’s lead figure of Calliope, the Muse of Heroic Poetry, one of the nine that had stood in Lord Cobham’s niched hedges on the parterre and the only one which never left Stowe. Facing towards the Temple of British Worthies, she holds a scroll which reads ‘Non nisi grandia canto’ (‘Of none but heroic deeds I sing’). Thus the Grenville ‘cousinhood’ elected one of their own to the realms of the Ancient and British Worthies.
Source: nationaltrust.org.uk