Blenheim - 15 Sept 07

Eric and I decided at the last minute (ie, at 11:00pm the night before) that we were going to head up to the Cotswolds for the weekend. Well, it wasn't entirely last minute - we knew we were going to do something, but weren't quite sure what. It feels like such an amazing luxury to have an entire weekend with no plans ... I'm not sure we had three of those weekends in Chicago ever! We reserved a car Friday night and set out in search of it Saturday morning. After a little bit of craziness trying to get going (FYI Dollar's Rental Car "Heathrow" desk is actually at a hotel approximately 5 miles, and requires a very expensive shuttle bus from the airport to find it), we were on our way. We found ourselves at Blenheim Palace on Saturday afternoon.

Um, WOW!



Blenheim (pronounced BLEN-um) is Britain's only privately-owned palace and it's just enormous. We spent three hours there and could have easily stayed three or four more. The sprawling palace (which reminded me over and over again of Versailles, France) was built in the first part of the 18th century for the Churchill family. It was Queen Anne's thanks to General John Churchill (1st Duke of Marlborough) for a war victory in Blenheim, Germany. The building itself covers 7 acres (of the 2100 acres bequeathed to the family) and was once described by a writer as a "petrified dinosaur or beached whale" - yep, it's that big. But the interiors are lovely, and the beautifully landscaped grounds are even better. Winston Churchill was born (prematurely) in the west wing of the palace. He was the first cousin of Duke #9, the one who married Consuela Vanderbilt (all kinds of juicy gossip in our tour about the young, rich, beautiful American heiress) and spent a lot of time there over the years. The WW2 hero also proposed to his bride Clementine on the grounds, in this little temple...



over-looking this lake ....



It was lovely. As Eric has been reading about Winston Churchill for over a year (a massive biography!) he particularly enjoyed the Churchill rooms with some unique memorabilia from his life. I really liked the library at the west end of the building ... It was designed as a winter "ladies room" so the lady of the house could get exercise walking laps in this ridiculously long room while enjoying the sunshine through the upper windows.



This is about 1/3 of the room's length. Note the huge statue of Queen Anne - giver of this great gift of a house - at the end of the room.

Eric also enjoyed figuring out the current cost of the land and building... Apparently in today's dollars, it would have cost several billion dollars just to build this house, in *addition* to the cost of the land given. Amazing! We decided that if we're ever invited to a wedding here (the family still lives there, but they rent out the gardens and public rooms for private functions) we are definitely going!

Anyway, I leave you with a few more pictures.



The organ at the far end of the library is exquisite, and the ornate ceiling above it is painted in over a dozen different shades of apricot, to highlight the rich texturing of the ceiling patterns.



The high windows, the old books, the classic architecture and fine paintings... I couldn't believe that this is actually someone's HOME. Duke #11 still lives here. Crazy. The tables and things are temporary... the library was being set up for a charity event later that evening.



The formal "water gardens"...



The rose garden is spectacular! I thought over and over again that I needed to show this to my dad. Mounds of plants, all exploding with color, and the fragrance is just heavenly...



The petals beneath these particular bushes reminded me of bridal paths. The earth seemed carpeted in white velvet instead of grass...



One blossom of more than a million... This rose was growing up the side of one of the arches that you can see were circling the whole garden.



Brooks kept trying to pick the petals off... He will not be distracted from his task for a photo!



There were so many big beautiful old trees. This one made me feel like I was walking through the set of "Emma" and wondered where Mr Knightley was... (remember the scene under the trees at the very end, with the really gorgeous glooming light?!)



How much of the entrance can we squeeze into one shot? Not much unless we walk reeeeeally far back into the courtyard. (And yes, the weather really was that perfect!)