2026-Blenheim Palace

We knew from the start that it was going to be a tricky day as the Met Office was forecasting windy showers, then Matt, our driver, informed us of a crash on the M25 that eventually led to a 17-mile tailback! However, he was determined to take us somewhere, so we headed off with purpose up Titsey Hill through Wallington, Purley, Epsom Downs, Ashtead and eventually joining the M25 at Leatherhead. From thereon, the journey proceeded at pace and we arrived at the Palace around midday.

Blenheim is a formidable palace built at a cost of some £25 million in today’s currency. The first Duke was given the manor estate of some 12,000 acres by a grateful Queen Anne for his glorious victory in 1704 over the armies of Louis XIV’s France on the banks of the Danube, near the village of Blindheim in what is now, southern Germany. Although the Duke never lived in the Palace, he started its construction, which was to be completed by his wife, Sarah, after his death. He engaged the services of John Vanbrugh whose only previous large commission was Castle Howard and, whilst Vanbrugh’s English Baroque vision was magnificent, the cost and squabbles abounded during the course of construction between the Duke, Queen Anne, the Government, Sarah, George II and Vanbrugh such that Vanbrugh moved on in 1716, leaving the completion to Wren’s ‘apprentice’, Nicholas Hawksmoor. Although Vanbrugh was not allowed to return again to the palace and was even refused entry to the estate just a year before he died, Marlborough had secured him a knighthood earlier from George I when he and Sarah returned from their self-imposed exile in Europe on the day Queen Anne died. The palace that we saw was also modified by subsequent Dukes and in particular, Capability Brown whose superb naturalised setting prompted George III to exclaim with envy that: “We have nothing like this!”