UK Trip Day 31 Blenheim Palace

Blenheim Palace .... birthplace of Winston Churchill

Today we left Pat's home in Cirencester and travelled back to Susan's place in Great Chesterford. It was a very hot night last night (make no mistake - very, very hot and sticky - even Darwin might have whimpered a little)  and as the sun doesn't set until 10 and rises again at 4 it stays hot for longer. I will never mock the Brits again when they complain of the heat when it gets over 30 degrees. Their houses are not built to deal with the heat the same as our houses in Queensland are not built to deal with the cold.
We came down to Cirencester using the highways. We are going back today using the cross country back roads. Who wouldn't take the opportunity to drive through the very picturesque Cotswold villages if they had time? Barb's new favourite is a place called Bibury. We couldn't stop unfortunately as they're doing roadworks there and because a lot of tourists were crowded in already there was no place to park. There is a stream running through the village and all the gardens have well kept cottage gardens with rambling roses climbing the stone walls the whole effect is picture postcard breathtaking.

Our mission for the day was to see Blenheim Palace, which is just to one side of Oxford. It is a stately home not to be missed and its big claim to fame is as the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. We were very lucky that Carmel had given us a two for one voucher for this place. It's neither English Heritage nor National Trust so would've cost us 50 pounds without the voucher. Ouch!

The house and gardens are spectacular though and on a huge scale like Castle Howard. The huge entry gates are ornate like Buckingham Palace Gates .... it's all very grand and impressive. There were tourist coaches lined up and loads of visitors everywhere. As we walked in a group of riders were just coming over the bridge across the ornamental lake. They clip clopped over the cobbled path maybe on their way to polo? Who knows?
The entry courtyard - the stable yard perhaps? - is very large, verging on enormous - and awesomely impressive. Then you pass through an arched passageway into the main courtyard of the house and it just takes your breath away all over again. It's so big! So ornate. When we went inside the palace there was a large tour group also entering. They were going towards the right to see the state rooms, so we went left.

Oh dear and oops. This turned out to be a big mistake. We found ourselves trapped on a tour where the doors automatically open and close behind you trapping you in the room for a designated number of minutes while you are forced to watch an animated audio visual display. Although interesting and worthy it was drawn out and quite claustrophobic. We were glad to get out into the open air again and have a look at the garden courtyard.

The garden is another one of Capabilty Brown's efforts. That man sure did get around. He seems to have designed a huge number of the stately homes gardens we've seen. These ones were unbelievably grand and ran all the way down to the man made lake (enormous, of course). There were numerous fountains and statues everywhere. Groups of schoolkids were sitting on the grass in the shade sketching the house and statues. We never had school outings like that!

We entered the house again and this time turned right towards the State rooms. This is the stuff! Huge rooms with loads of precious art and elaborate chandeliers. This is more like it. There were also several rooms dedicated to Sir Winston Churchill and his war exploits as Prime Minister. It was most enjoyable to see these rooms and not at all claustrophobic even though there were big crowds.

It was quite tiring looking at all this marvellous house and gardens. We decided to save Woburn Abbey for another day and go straight on to Susan's instead. We arrived mid afternoon after succeeding in missing the worst of the peak hour traffic.