Wednesday 18th September
Yesterday’s pedometer reading 3.7 k’s
Today’s pedometer reading 5.8 k’s
Today
we planned to spend the morning at Blenheim Palace but stayed all day! Andrew
is a massive admirer of Sir Winston Churchill and that was one of the reasons
we chose to visit Blenheim Palace.
In 1702 John Churchill became the 1st Duke of Marlborough after he led
the decisive English victory over French forces at Blenheim, on the river
Danube in Germany. Queen Anne was so impressed she granted him the royal manor of Woodstock, and built him a house at her own expense to be called Blenheim. Construction
started in 1705 and the house was completed in 1722, the year of the 1st Duke
of Marlborough's death. Blenheim Palace has since remained in the Churchill and
Spencer-Churchill family.
There is a relationship with the Spencer
family a la Princess Diana but I’m not sure what the link is.
Winston Churchill was the grandson of the 7th Duke of Marlborough.
The current owner of Blenheim Palace is the 11th Duke of
Marlborough and Winston Churchill was his godfather.
The amazing thing is that Blenheim Palace is still their private home!
We started our tour with a visitor experience led by Grace Ridley, ladies maid to the 1st Duchess of
Marlborough, who reveals what life was like at the Palace over the past 300
years, from the servants perspective. It was a wee bit ‘Disney’ but gave a very
good overview of the history of the palace.
This is the room where the family
of the current Duke
have their Christmas meal each year…pretty impressive.
This silver piece was
commissioned and depicts the 1st Duke
writing a dispatch to Queen
Anne from the battlefield in Blenheim
letting her know about the glorious
victory.
From there we visited The Churchill Exhibition situated around the room in which Sir Winston Churchill was
born in 1874. He was born here quite unexpectedly, 2 months prematurely
when his mother and father were visiting Blenheim.
The room where Winston Churchill was born
We wandered around the gardens…Blenheim Palace is surrounded by over 2,000 acres of
stunning parkland and award-winning Formal Gardens. The splendour and
tranquillity of 'Capability' Brown’s landscaped park and great lake fringed by
majestic oaks and maples is beautiful. Over 100 acres of Formal Gardens include
the recently restored Secret Garden, majestic Water Terraces, The Rose Garden
and the Duke of Marlborough’s ornate private garden; The Italian Garden. We
walked to the Grand Cascade and across Vanbrugh’s Grand Bridge to the Column of
Victory to take in views of the magnificent lake fringed by majestic oaks and
maples.
The Water Terraces
This is the spot where
Winston Churchill proposed
to his future wife Clementine…so romantic.
A view from the Lake
across to the boat house ,
with the castle peeking over the top of the trees.
The boat house.
After visiting the Blenheim gift shop… we took a miniature train ride to the Pleasure Gardens which include a
Lavender Garden and the Butterfly House where our cameras fogged up and we
couldn’t take any photos of the huge array of butterflies fluttering around. We
then decided to have a go at giant ‘Marlborough Hedge Maze’…
Who’s lost?
It’s me!!!
We stopped off at the Co-operative in our village and bought
the makings of a meal and cooked at ‘home’ again tonight…a little roast beef
with some veggies…luckily I bought some duty free wine on the ferry from Dublin…we
had a perfect day and evening…we were very lucky with the weather again today…it
wasn’t tropical, but it didn’t rain :-)
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