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Blenheim Palace

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Today was dedicated to Blenheim Palace, the ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough. 




After a quick and tasty breakfast (made by Libby) of fried eggs, toast (accidentally bought GF), bacon, tomatoes, and strawberries we got ready and set off to the bus station at Gloucester Green a just less than a mile north of our accommodation. We rode the bus thirty minutes to the front gates of palace. 

Once we were past some unpleasantness regarding tickets and lines, we were in. We got lucky and the Duke was not currently in residence, and while I don't know if this was an option before and he was in residence, or if it is a new scheme to make money, we choose to pay the extra £5.00 per person to do the upstairs and downstairs tours of the private residences.

The first tour started at noon and it was close to so we decided to mill around and take photos before it started rather than go into the estate rooms (the normal area visitors would go to). When noon arrived we found ourselves the only people waiting for the tour so it was practically a private tour1! We had two tour guides2 who were both knowledgeable and entertaining. We were told about the palace, the duke, and some anecdotes about some of the rooms and items in them. The duke only seems to live in Blenheim a few weeks of the year. We weren't told much about him other than he's very casual, and his son recently married a "lady" and lives in London. 





One funny anecdote was more about the employees of the palace. A man who eventually became a butler used to ride the baskets the the footmen would use to transport linens to the bedrooms back down a stone staircase for the employees of the palace. There are enormous scratches in the sides of the walls as a result. We're talking sixty steps of basket riding! There's a landing where he had to pull up on the front basket to keep it going to the next turn. One humorous story about the private estates concerns the dining room. On the dining room table stood a silver statue of Louis XIV as the center piece, and when the there are enough people it gets moved to the end of the table that stretches near a painting of the 1st Duke of Marlborough. The duke again is given an opportunity to look down on his vanquished foe.

Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take any photos of the private residence (upstairs or down). It was very interesting to see though. The rooms that the family live in don't seem very comfy. I also thought it was odd that the formal dining room was right next door to the Duke's bedroom.

The second tour was the "downstairs" tour which took us through the working areas of the palace. There we saw the where the first stones of the palace were placed, the series of bells that the production staff from Downton Abbey took as inspiration for their bells, and other key--working--areas of the palace like the laundry room, kitchen, and wine cellars. I guess there is a rule folks who can buy copious amounts of wine follow. They buy a ton of wine. Drink a third, keep a third to age and drink later, and then a final third to age and sell to then fund the next round of wines. (It's like how some Seahawks season ticket holders pay for the next season's tickets by selling off a few of the current season's.)




After our tours we had lunch at The Stables cafe. Libby forgot to take a picture of lunch but she got a picture of dessert! Priorities, right?

Lemon drizzle cake and coffee cake

After lunch we walked through the Formal Gardens, did the Churchill exhibit then toured the estate rooms. They had a bunch of costumes on display from the movie The Favorite which was really cool. 

Churchill kindly showed up for photos at the end of his exhibit

Poor pheasant thought it was going to get a treat off Tommy

We were among the last of the tourists to straggle out of the palace. Unfortunately we ran out of time so we didn't get to see the butterfly house or ride the little train, much to Tommy's dismay. Next time!

We stopped at a pub for dinner before heading back to our flat. 



1 I say practically because there wasn't much room for questions during the tour, nor were they explicitly encouraged.
2 One of the guides wasn't really leading but there to make sure we didn't wander off or gets lost during the tour.

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