home    servas    itinerary      to Oxford    Oxford
Blenheim Castle After an informative but frustrating attempt to turn US money into Coin of the Realm (banks won't do), we found our bus to Woodstock village at the edge of Blenheim Castle's extensive grounds -- just how extensive, we had a chance to find out later.

We entered through the Triumphal Gate and could easily imagine ourselves at the head of a victorious royal caravan crossing acres of grass above the lakes toward the castle in the distance. We showed our tickets and entered the castle past the Orangerie (closed to the public) and entered the majestic west front. It's enormous. Chad took this picture of us from the southwest arm of the west yard. Chad demonstrating the place's size from another angle This was our first experience with a mob of tourists, and in the middle of a heat wave, and so we were somewhat deadened to the real magnificence of the place. Our guide, who turned out to be a Virginia boy, soldiered through despite his cravat and broadcloth long coat, so we did too. Especially in view of the fact that this place was built by a grateful Queen Anne for John Churchill, created Duke of Marlborough after his heroic victory at the Battle of Blenheim (Germany) in 1704. The Germans apparently pronounce it BlenHEIM but to the Brits it's Blen'em. The ceiling of the Great Hall into which we entered is magnificently painted, 67 feet in the air. It's a good preparation for the overall splendor of the place. Here's John presenting the plans for the battle to Britannia. After a wonderful Winston Churchill exhibit -- he was born in a bedroom here; his mother, wife of a cousin, was a guest of the Duke of Marlborough when she went into labor -- we met the rest of the Marlborough family. Let me introduce some of them to you, too. John, the first Duke of Marlborough duke, on the left with the great hair, was a military prodigy, winning several campaigns and becoming the youngest colonel, then the youngest general, in Britain's distinguished history of belligerence. At the Battle of Blenheim he presided over a well-planned clash involving more that 100,000 men, of whom some 30,000 died within 24 hours, to end the Spanish pretense of hegemony over Europe. Returning, he was rewarded by his Queen and country. Apparently this impressed John, who devoted the rest of his life to promoting peace. His vigor was apparently more than his sons could stand, because they, and his eldest daughters, did not survive. His title, and the newly created Dukedom, was preserved by act of Parliament and passed along to his daughter Ann, the little girl in green.

The First State Room features copies of Louis XIV's furniture

The Ninth Duke of Marlborough, demonstrating this continued decline of vigor, arranged to marry Consuelo, the young daughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt. Mrs Vanderbilt wanted to have royalty in the family, and Marlborough needed money. Consuelo presented the Duke with two sons, whom she called "the heir and the spare" thus originating that term, before divorcing the Duke. That's young Consuelo on the right, hanging between scenes from the first Duke's magnificent victories.

Another one of the gorgeous "drawing rooms" -- originally "withdrawing rooms" for John and his guests to get away from the press of palace guests -- features John Singer Sargeant's family portrait of the Ninth Duke, his Duchess Consuelo, the heir, and the spare. One of the nicest bits about this room was the nice breeze coming through a window. Many of the rooms were unbearably hot, and our guide told us that the ends of the season are often unbelievably cold and drafty.

The Red Drawing Room

The Long Library click for a larger (115k) version of this image

The Dukes were great collectors, and by the time this room was renovated in the late 18th Century, there were several miles of shelves scattered around the castle. They were consolidated into this room, 187 feet long, "the second longest library in the United Kingdom." Later I'll show you part of the second largest hedge maze in the world. Rochelle thinks it would be a great thing to have a library like this in Caspar. Maybe it wouldn't have to be quite so ornate...

photo credit: Chad Abramson Out in back, the Dukes built wonderful gardens. Here's the upper water terrace. The lower water terrace is surrounded by statues, some heroic, some fanciful. This one caught Chad's fancy, much to his mother's amazement. Behind a screen of trees a leisurely ramble away from the water gardens, there's a lovely rose mandala. Walking back from the Rose Garden, the castle is framed by huge trees, many planted by Capability Brown in the 1760s. His men also dug the impressive lakes. The present Duke John, the Eleventh, lives in the East wing, and below his windows there's a formal Italian garden. That's the Orangerie on the right.

The Eleventh Duke has tried a different strategy or raising the staggering sums required to keep this place up -- he's built a pleasure garden in a corner of the park. Rochelle started lobbying for mazes months before we left, so we rode the little steam train over to the Pleasure Garden and tried out the second largest hedge maze in the world. Since second best doesn't cut it, the Duke has thrown in some fanciful plastic mazes as well. We asked the twinky young woman guarding the gate to the maze where the largest maze was, and she agreed she should know, but lamentably didn't.

So we visited the Butterfly house. Then we walked and walked and walked and walked -- we thought it was a short cut, but it turned out to be a long cut -- around the gorgeous dry rock wall that surrounds the huge park.

We nursed our battered feet in a cool pub in central Oxford -- Chad says, "This one's for you, homies!" previous: passage to Oxford     day 3 : Oxford Travel along with us!

	updated 6 July 2001 : 15:47 Caspar (Pacific) time this site generated with 100% recycled electrons! send website feedback to the Solarnet webster
© 2001-2002 by Caspar Institute. All Rights Reserved.