Blenheim Palace
Blenheim Palace is an 18th century aristocratic residence. It is the ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough. The first Duke was given this former royal property by Queen Anne, after his victory over the French at Blenheim (Blindheim) in 1704. This triumph is also memorized on site in a number of military trophies and ten large tapestries.
The palace was built between 1705 and 1722 by the architect John Vanbrugh. Its architectural style is eclectic, with baroque, (neo)gothic and neoclassical elements.
The grounds include formal gardens plus a landscape park designed by Capability Brown. They cover an area of 3 hectares in Woodstock, Oxfordshire. Blenheim Palace also is the accidental birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill (1874).
Visit March 2010
I visited Blenheim on a half day trip from Oxford. Bus S3 gets you there in about half an hour. It was pouring when we left Oxford bus station – not a good thing as I had planned to have a walk around the park first. The palace itself does not open until 10.30 a.m., so I had about an hour beforehand.
From the main entrance it’s quite a walk to the palace and the surrounding park and gardens. This definitely is a landscape park, with artificial(?) hills and wide open spaces. And lots of asphalt too. Superficially there are lots of similarities with a WHS that I visited about a year ago – Muskauer Park. Despite the rain I wasn’t the only one around. Local joggers use the hilly terrain as training grounds. After an hour my feet started to hurt and I was happy that I could go inside and out of the wet weather.
Entrance to the site costs a rather steep 18 pounds. As the palace has no other external funding, this probably all goes into the restoration and conservation of the complex. Tours of about half an hour are conducted through the State Rooms. There are also tours of the private apartments when the current Duke of Marlborough is not at home. This Saturday morning the tours ran almost continually to accommodate the stream of visitors.
These palace tours aren’t really my favourite pastime, but the guides weren't too slow or boring and I found a couple of interesting things on show. Amidst the innumerable family portraits of all Dukes and family members, there’s a good collection of Chinese porcelain (Fu-kien blanc du Chine). And of course the famous Flemish tapestries depicting the battle of Blenheim. Furthermore, the impressive Saloon which is fully covered in murals by Louis Laguerre.
Outside again, I had a look at the Water terraces and Italian gardens. Although it had stopped raining, the weather wasn’t bright enough to really enjoy walking there. What I did like were the numerous sculptures in the gardens which includes a formidable sphinx.
After about 3 hours on the grounds, I had enough and caught a bus back to Oxford. In all, it was quite a good visit for a palace or stately home (not my favourite kind of WHS).
More photos can be found in the Picture Gallery
Reviews
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I visited Blenheim last year with my wife and thoroughly enjoyed the day out. The building and the contents made the whole experience one of the best palaces I've seen. The grounds and gardens are fantastic. This linked the fabulous history of the Churchill family make this an experince not to miss. |
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Ian Cade (England):
 Blenheim Palace is the quintessential English stately home, with vast landscaped grounds and a central building dripping with extravagance. I must admit palaces bore me rigid as they remind me of school trips when I was younger, but this was a pleasant experience and the amount of art and antiques on display was impressive. There was also a strong link between the elites of France and Germany which was nice to see a more Europe wide history on display.
The entrance fee was a little steep £10 (€14) and you are not allowed to take photos inside the Palace, but you do have the chance to have a guided tour which is very informative if a touch pompous, in a way that only the English can be! They make a lot of the connections to Winston Churchill, but it turns out he was only born here and never lived here.
The grounds are very large, they were designed by Capability Brown who was the most sought after landscape designer at the time, and the waterfalls are extremely nice. There is also a little pleasure garden replete with a maze, putting green, model village and miniature train (English to the very core!).
Blenheim is just outside of Oxford which is a fantastic city to visit for its University and associated buildings, (busses run to the Palace from the central bus station), The surrounding area of the Cotswolds is what most people think of when they dream of England!
This is perhaps the best sight to visit if you want to get the quintessential English experience |
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Emilee-Elizabeth Mancher (U.S.A):
Hi my name is Emilee-Elizabeth and I took my family to the Blenheim Palace and we all loved it. It had great facilities it as really well maintained and the transport and entry prices were reasonable. My husband Dylan thought it was great, p.s he loved the food!
Lots of Love,
Emilee-Elizabeth mancher
& the rest of the Mancher family( Eliza, Zara, Ben, Katie, Gemma, Aaron, Mary-Kate & Josh) |
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