Monument record 0420807005 - Ha Ha, Warden's Walk and near Park Lodge, Stowe

In June 1995, two trenches were cut across the line of the former ha ha and ditch flanking Warden Hill Wall to check its position and to see what might remain of its construction. Both excavations encountered the footings of the wall. The wall has clearly been dismantled and the facing stone removed, leaving only small pieces of rubble core and mortar. By 1843 the boundary for the garden had been pushed out further to the south and replaced by an iron fence. Copper Bottom lake was cut in the 1840s, and it seems likely that the ha ha was filled with spoil from this process (B1).
A deposit of clay and tile noted in the west end of the trench may somehow be associated with the removal of the inner ha ha around the Home Park. This was swept away by Earl Temple in the early 1750s soon after he inherited Stowe. Evidence for this early ha ha appears on the Bridgeman plan of 1739, where the earlier straight outline of the north edge of the lake can also be seen. The 1750s works involved uniting the lake with the irregular shaped pond in the Home Park and this probably subsumed the terrace walk along the lake edge but may also have cut across the line of the ha ha. No evidence for this ha ha was found in the east-west section of the trench and the excavation quickly reached the natural olive green clay. It is possible that the north-south arm may lie across its alignment as most of the stratigraphy within this section appeared to be man-made. However, it is more likely that the former ha ha lay slightly further to the south and within the outline of the present lake. The answer to this question can only be derived if a much larger and deeper trench is excavated along the lake edge (B2).