When talking to a certain Australian friend (Mike, you know who you are), we mentioned that we'd recently been to Chatsworth and how much we'd enjoyed it. His response was that Chatsworth was good but Blenheim Palace was better. And so for our next holiday we included a trip to Blenheim Palace.
If you've been following our adventures, you'll have already met a couple of the great English families, and you'll have discovered that their backgrounds are not that great, after all. There was the Legh family, of Lyme Park, who cut off a Frenchman's arm at some highly significant battle which no-one has heard of. There were the Dukes of Devonshire, who bought their title and then improved it through a spot of creative treason, er, I mean patriotic revolution. But at Blenheim Palace we meet a family of a different sort, the Dukes of Marlborough. Their fame began with John Churchill, who began life as a page in the court of Charles II. He was essentially a military genius, and was quickly promoted. He rescued the Austrians from disaster in the war of the Spanish Succession and then won the utterly memorable battle of Blindheim, or Blenheim, knocking the French out of the war (which is, of course, the aim of all wars up to 1910).
Until this point, the war had been looking rather bleak for England, and so Churchill was rather a popular sort of fellow. He was made the Duke of Marlborough (he had, admittedly, been made Earl of Marlborough for supporting the Dutch Orange). It was thought that probably his flat in Kensington, nice though it was, was not a iftting residence for a Duke, so Queen Anne decided to build Blenheim Palace for him instead, as a home for a hero and as a monument to commemorate the victory at Blenheim. It shows. By the time it was three-quarters done, the Duke was not quite so popular with the Queen, and in fact she stopped paying the builders, leaving the Duke with a £60,000 bill to finish it. The poor fellow, only getting £240,000 from the taxpayer for his house. For reference, that's somewhere well over £100,000,000 today, the poor sod, I dunno how he coped.
Anyhow, the family has continued to produce some highlights, including Lord Randolph Churchill, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and, of course, Sir Winston Churchill, also premier of these islands, and smoker of enormous cigars, who was in fact born at Blenheim Palace.
Take a first look at the place, as you drive up the carriageway* to the front door:
Good, isn't it? It's big; that commemorates the victory at Blenheim. See the baroque ornamentation? That commemorates the victory at Blenheim. The symmetrical perfection of it? It commemorates the victory at Blenheim. The solid immovability of it? That, also, commemorates the victory at Blenheim. The house was designed to overshadow Versailles in a "blaze of architectural glory" (according to the guide book) and that, of course, commemorates the victory at Blenheim. Lions are, of course, very noble, courageous beasts, and the miniature statues of them scattered around the grounds commemorate the victory at Blenheim.
Cannons are very military things, and there are some of them scattered around to commemorate the victory at Blenheim.
The first Duke was a soldier, and there are lots of statues of soldiers, typically with not much in the way of clothing, kicking around to commemorate the victory at Blenheim:
They have quite a good maze... in the shape of the Duke's banners and trumpets, commemorating the victory at Blenheim:
And when you reach the middle, you find B L E N H E I M spelt out, to, erm, commemorate the victory at Blenheim:
While it's not exactly in Trafalgar Square, like that uppity sod Nelson's column, it is still a big column, and certainly commemorates the victory at Blenheim:
Whether or not the sheep are, in some way, commemorative, remains unclear. This is Gladys (modeled on the ninth Duke's second wife), and she, also, commemorates the victory at Blenheim.
Cannons are very military things, and there are some of them scattered around to commemorate the victory at Blenheim.
The first Duke was a soldier, and there are lots of statues of soldiers, typically with not much in the way of clothing, kicking around to commemorate the victory at Blenheim:
They have quite a good maze... in the shape of the Duke's banners and trumpets, commemorating the victory at Blenheim:
And when you reach the middle, you find B L E N H E I M spelt out, to, erm, commemorate the victory at Blenheim:
While it's not exactly in Trafalgar Square, like that uppity sod Nelson's column, it is still a big column, and certainly commemorates the victory at Blenheim:
Whether or not the sheep are, in some way, commemorative, remains unclear. This is Gladys (modeled on the ninth Duke's second wife), and she, also, commemorates the victory at Blenheim.
Even that "heroic Grand Bridge" you can see at the top of this post, which was built before there was a lake for it to cross, by the way, commemorates the victory at Blenheim.
Perhaps you get the picture.
There were less people here than at Chatsworth, and we had better weather. This was not a reflection on either Chatsworth or Blenheim, just that we'd gone to Blenheim during the week and Chatsworth on a public holiday. And as for the English weather...!!! Well for a summer that never happened, it was nice to see the sun during our holiday.
Chatsworth and Blenheim are different. The gardens at Chatsworth are so huge that we didn't have time to see the surrounding park whereas at Blenheim we spent most of our time in the park and pleasure gardens. In Chatsworth House we were allowed to take photos, but in Blenheim Palace we weren't. So the available photos aren't going to give you a good comparison but I hope you like them.
The gardens at Chatsworth are more formal, with more features and works of art scattered around. You feel like you move from one set piece to the next, even the ones that are supposed to look natural. Blenheim subscribes more fully to the landscape garden theory, that it should be constructed in a way that looks like it wasn't. There are a couple of formal gardens around the house, and a kitchen garden some distance away, but the rest looks like it might have just happened that way, albeit with some regular mowing.
See this lovely, natural-looking lake? Man made.
And this lovely, natural-looking waterfall? Man made.
And this lovely, natural-looking butterfly? Alright, not manmade, but I needed to get the butterfly house in somewhere.
These things may or may not commemorate the victory at Blenheim; the guide book is silent on this point. They also have this gate, which doesn't look natural but rather took my fancy nonetheless. I duly walked through it and shut it again, though Kylie laughed at me.
There are formal gardens, too, although about half of them are private. Here's a sample:
We don't have any photos of the inside, as we weren't allowed to take any, but it's no real loss; we could only see a few rooms, the state rooms, and they were generally so ridiculously over-ornamented that they don't really impress any more; they end up looking gaudy, or all just blending into each other.
All in all, it is well worth a visit and comes highly recommended, with one minor word of caution: Getting in cost us a shade under 40 quid, including the guide book, which is a bit steep as days out go. This is nearly two thirds of our national trust membership, which gets us into 300 different stately homes around the UK for a year, which you would have to say is a better deal.
I will leave you with a selection of views from Blenheim. Alright, more views from Blenheim.
* Of course, us plebs don't get to drive up this way, we come in by the back entrance.
Chatsworth and Blenheim are different. The gardens at Chatsworth are so huge that we didn't have time to see the surrounding park whereas at Blenheim we spent most of our time in the park and pleasure gardens. In Chatsworth House we were allowed to take photos, but in Blenheim Palace we weren't. So the available photos aren't going to give you a good comparison but I hope you like them.
The gardens at Chatsworth are more formal, with more features and works of art scattered around. You feel like you move from one set piece to the next, even the ones that are supposed to look natural. Blenheim subscribes more fully to the landscape garden theory, that it should be constructed in a way that looks like it wasn't. There are a couple of formal gardens around the house, and a kitchen garden some distance away, but the rest looks like it might have just happened that way, albeit with some regular mowing.
See this lovely, natural-looking lake? Man made.
And this lovely, natural-looking waterfall? Man made.
And this lovely, natural-looking butterfly? Alright, not manmade, but I needed to get the butterfly house in somewhere.
These things may or may not commemorate the victory at Blenheim; the guide book is silent on this point. They also have this gate, which doesn't look natural but rather took my fancy nonetheless. I duly walked through it and shut it again, though Kylie laughed at me.
There are formal gardens, too, although about half of them are private. Here's a sample:
We don't have any photos of the inside, as we weren't allowed to take any, but it's no real loss; we could only see a few rooms, the state rooms, and they were generally so ridiculously over-ornamented that they don't really impress any more; they end up looking gaudy, or all just blending into each other.
All in all, it is well worth a visit and comes highly recommended, with one minor word of caution: Getting in cost us a shade under 40 quid, including the guide book, which is a bit steep as days out go. This is nearly two thirds of our national trust membership, which gets us into 300 different stately homes around the UK for a year, which you would have to say is a better deal.
I will leave you with a selection of views from Blenheim. Alright, more views from Blenheim.
* Of course, us plebs don't get to drive up this way, we come in by the back entrance.
1 comment:
When I was there visitors could book in to play the organ in the Library before the house opened - not sure if you can still do that. Obviously you would have to actually be able to "play" the said instrument (one would assume)! I thought a pipe organ in the library was a nice touch!
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