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The big day had finally arrived. We were at last on our way to discover “Britain’s Greatest Palace.” My travel buddy, Ian, and I were on the top deck of a bus leaving Oxford for Woodstock and Blenheim. Our expectations were high. A guide at another stately home in the north had raved about Blenheim, saying it was the most splendid building he had ever visited. The Rough Guide to England describes it as “England’s finest example of Baroque civic architecture.” It was all set up to be an amazing day.

However, as we travelled through the Oxfordshire countryside, I harboured my doubts. Was it really going to be that great? Afterall, I was born and bred in Derbyshire. Everyone in that neck of the woods knows that Chatsworth is the greatest stately home in the country, no argument, and that is not even mentioning Haddon Hall and Hardwick Hall in the same county. Together they form a magnificent trio. I am prejudiced I know but I was more than a bit cynical about Blenheim’s grandiose claims.

Ian and I had debated long and hard about whether to even go to Blenheim on a day trip from Oxford . The admission price was an eye-watering £41 each with no concessions for OAPs. It had better be good we muttered as we took a deep breath and paid up. We had been advised to book in advance because of the Palace’s immense popularity. As well as being the great architect, John Vanbrugh’s masterpiece, it had also been the birthplace and home of one of Britain’s most famous leaders, Winston Churchill, so it was bound to attract lots of people.

After half an hour or so the bus approached Woodstock. The stop before the town centre was actually right beside the large, ornate, wrought iron gates of the palace. We disembarked, showed our tickets and headed up a dead straight avenue to an elaborate stone gateway. Beyond this was the great palace itself. The gateway led into a courtyard surrounded by old stone buildings. It was the usual set up. The stables or whatever had been converted into visitor facilities — a cafe/restaurant, toilets and the inevitably priced -up shop. We were in need of a rest and a drink after the journey and so headed straight for the cafe. Incongruously there was modern pop music playing in the background. We had encountered the same thing at Christ Church College shop back in Oxford. Nobody seemed to have thought it important to create an appropriate atmosphere for the exploration of an early 18th century building.

As we rested and sipped our drinks, we looked forward to our exploration of this special monument, a Grade 1 listed building and a World Heritage Site. Like good, conscientious cultural tourists we had researched the history of the place. The story began in 1704 when John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, led an army that defeated Louis XIV’s French and their Bavarian allies at Blenheim, an Austrian village on the River Danube. It was part of the War of the Spanish Succession, where the British were trying to stop the French from controlling Spain. Like much of history, it’s terribly complicated and led to countless tragic deaths. Anyway, Churchill defeated the previously formidable French army and Queen Anne rewarded him with the Royal estate of Woodstock, along with the promise of enough cash to build a gigantic, celebratory palace.

Work started promptly in 1705 with Sir John Vanbrugh as the principal architect assisted by Nicholas Hawksmoor, a talented protegee of Sir Christopher Wren. Vanbrugh had first made his name as a playwright, creating several Restoration comedies which were scathing and controversial satires on English society at the time. He was also heavily involved in politics and took part in the plotting to replace the Catholic King James II with his protestant daughter Mary and Dutch son in law, William, in 1688. ( known as the “Glorious Revolution.”)

When Vanbrugh switched to architecture, he had no training or qualifications but he did have a brilliant imagination and an unerring eye for perspective and detail. Assisted by Hawksmoor and a team of skilled craftsmen, he created an English version of Baroque architecture, the fancy, decorative style popular in Italy and France and across Europe. His first big success was Castle Howard in North Yorkshire. On the basis of this, Vanbrugh got the commission to design what was to be Blenheim Palace. The architect of Chatsworth House,( the first Baroque country house in England), William Tulman, also applied, but Vanbrugh probably got the commission because he was a smooth talker, moved in high circles and knew the Duke through the Kit Kat gentlemen’s club in London.

Vanbrugh’s vision for Blenheim was to create a national monument to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough’s famous victory. It was going to be more than a family home. This soon led him to clash with the Duke’s strong-willed wife, Sarah Jennings. Her wish was for a cosy, middle class family home not some grandiose edifice. She had also wanted Sir Christopher Wren to do the job but perhaps he wasn’t one of the Duke’s mates at the Kit Kat Club. Who knows? The Duchess and the architect were constantly at loggerheads, and in the end, Vanbrugh walked off the job in disgust in 1716, vowing never to return. Further delays were caused by John Churchill’s involvement in political infighting and at one point, he was even banished to France for 3 years. After his great military triumph, he didn’t seem to want to rest on his laurels and settle for the quiet life.

The upshot of all this is that construction stopped for years, and Queen Anne lost interest in financing the expensive project. The palace was only finally finished after the Duke died. It was mostly paid for by his widow Sarah and she hired Hawksmoor to complete the task as Vanbrugh was still sulking elsewhere. It was finally finished in 1722, seventeen years after the building had begun. By then Queen Anne had passed away as well and Britain had entered the age of the Georgians.

Blenheim became England’s largest non-Royal domestic building. It is built of pale mellow, yellow stone ( apologies to Donovan.) It consists of 3 main blocks. The centre contains both living and magnificent state rooms, inspired by Versailles. Then there are 2 large rectangular wings, both surrounding a courtyard. In the cafe, draining our Americanos, we were sitting in one of these wings. The main dazzling show was still to come. We looked forward to seeing the tall slender windows and monumental statuary on the roofs. On the inside we would see the 20 metre ( 67 ft) Great Hall and a huge, frescoed Saloon. As we left the palace tearoom, our appetites were well and truly whetted….

But, as you may have guessed already, we were going to be severely disappointed. As we approached the main entrance to the famous palace we came across a notice thanking us for our contribution to the major restoration work that was currently being carried out. We rounded a corner and found that the whole central section of the magnificent south portico was completely hidden behind scaffolding and protective sheeting! It was a massive shock and anti-climax. We stood there for a couple of minutes in complete disbelief! We had paid all that money to look at a flapping wall of white plastic!

So we just had to imagine the spectacular array or piers and classical columns, and the huge bust of the “Sun King” on the roof, being forced to look down on the splendours and rewards of his conqueror. The best consolation they could offer us was a large postcard of the magnificent frontage in the shop, or maybe we could have bought a jig saw. The whole situation was like a big, sick joke. Surely they should have warned us about the restoration work before letting us shell out all that money? Either that, or they could have significantly reduced the very steep entrance price.

However, we just had to lick our wounds and get on with it. We entered the building, showed our tickets again and followed the trail. To be fair, the interior is stuffed with high class paintings, tapestries and objects d’art. There is furniture from Versailles to rub the salt into the wounds of the defeated French and superb carvings by Grinling Gibbons, who had managed to stay on the right side of Duchess Sarah. We saw a great painting by Singer Sergeant and two by Anthony Van Dyck, which were strangely not clearly labelled or explained. The attendants were good but there were too few of them such that not every room could be covered. We came across a room full of paintings by Sir Winston Churchill which were being proudly displayed. However they were just so-so. He might have been a formidable war leader but he was strictly an amateur artist.

We came to the Saloon which has an apparently breath-taking, frescoed dome, but this too was hidden behind scaffolding and sheeting. Earlier we had been unable to see a famous painted ceiling in the entrance hall. We had to swallow our disappointments. I couldn’t however help blurting out to Ian, that Chatsworth was 10 times better than this! At this point we bumped into 2 Americans who we had met in the hotel breakfast room back in Oxford. They were “doing” stately houses of England and had mainly come to Oxford to visit Blenheim. What a disappointment for them. I later learnt that the work has been going on for 2 years and still has at least another year to go. I don’t suppose they’ll be rushing back from Texas to see it once it finally reopens in all its glory. We recommended a lesser known Vanbrugh building — Seaton Delaval Hall– for them to possibly visit when they made it up to the north east. They seemed interested.

Our tour of the state rooms and private living quarters on the first floor didn’t really take that long and before we knew it we were back in the formal garden that sits in front of the entrance. Obviously, it being September, the garden was somewhat passed its peak. We admired the views down to a lake and an extensive park, landscaped inevitably by Lancelot Capability Brown. Across a narrow part of the lake was Vanbrugh’s Grand Bridge. Then the parkland swept up a hill, topped by the Column of Victory featuring an heroic statue of the 1st Duke of Marlborough, John Churchill. I wonder what French visitors make of all this over -the- top British triumphalism?

We were just about to stride out to explore the park when the dark clouds overhead turned into persistent cold rain. Our disappointing day was continuing! We dived back into the palace for shelter and ended up on the ground floor. Here we saw all the usual upstairs-downstairs stuff in quite a good exhibition. We saw the kitchen, the servants quarters and a table laden with pretend food being prepared for the aristocrats above. A lady dressed as a Victorian chambermaid gave us an interesting, little talk. Apparently the palace had fallen into disrepair by the end of the 19th century and was only saved by funds from the 9th Duke’s marriage to the American railroad heiress, Consuelo Vanderbilt. It was a loveless marriage of convenience. He got the money and she got the title.

We went on to view the exhibition about Winston Churchill, the revered war leader who was born and brought up at Blenheim. He was given a grand state funeral when he died in 1965 and I remember it being on the black and white telly most of that day with commentary by Richard Dimbleby in his sonorous tones. I don’t subscribe to the Churchill cult. Neither did my mum who described him as a “war monger.” It’s strange to me that he is regarded as one of Britain’s greatest statesmen. First of all he was half American, as his mother, Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill came from across the pond. It was the same deal as above — money for a title. Also I note that Winston Churchill ordered striking Welsh miners to be shot, when he was Home Secretary in 1910. In the First World War he was responsible for the disastrous Dardanelles Campaign in Turkey that led to many needless deaths. In the 1920s as Chancellor he put Britain back on the Gold Standard, causing economic hardship for many and leading to social unrest culminating in the 1926 General Strike. In the same decade he threatened to gas rebellious Kurds in British run Iraq. ( Thankfully he didn’t carry out his chilling threat.) Even in the Second World War, when he was Britain’s great leader, he was the architect of the failed Narvik campaign which tried to secure northern Norway from German occupation. General Dwight D Eisenhower was reputed to have remarked that the allies won the second world war DESPITE not BECAUSE of Churchill. I won’t continue with the hatchet job. Suffice to say — I am not a Churchill fan.

When we came out of the house a second time it had stopped raining so this time we were able to descend into the park towards the lake. From Vanbrugh’s bridge we watching cormorants and grebes diving and fishing. We also saw a couple of young visitors go down from the bridge to the waterside and take a selfie in front of an unusually shaped tree protected by a low fence. When we checked it out we found from an information board that this tree had featured in a Harry Potter film and was now visited by hundreds of fans every year. There seemed to be no getting away from the fictitious boy wizard in this part of England.

Finally we strolled out of the park and exited via another gateway into the little town of Woodstock. It was now late afternoon and very quiet. The town is picturesque, having quite a few historical buildings. I spoke to a lady in an oriental rug shop that I visited about the repair work at the palace. It seemed the roof was leaking in places and priceless frescoes were in danger of being destroyed for ever. So the urgent renovation work is understandable but she agreed with me that visitors should be warned. There seemed to be an uneasy relationship between the palace and the town. The rug lady told me that there were plans to chop down a bluebell wood and destroy other countryside owned by the palace in order to install one of the largest solar farms in Europe. Many town’s folk were up in arms.

We enjoyed Woodstock, especially as we didn’t have to pay £41 to see it. We admired the old buildings and then went to sit in a peaceful, beautiful churchyard as some late afternoon sun at last came out. It was a magical half hour or so.

Finally we enjoyed an excellent Italian meal at a local bistro, before catching the bus back to Oxford. It had been a very interesting day and we had really enjoyed it. However, as the bus passed Blenheim’s grand gates and we glanced again up the avenue to the scaffolding covered Baroque towers, we couldn’t help thinking that we had been cheated by the descendants of Churchill. They should have told us! Lastly, if anyone of you out there wants to enjoy the greatest house in England, get yourself to Derbyshire and visit Chatsworth!

NB To locate my earlier posts, please go to : https://scrapheapstuart2.wordpress.com