Blenheim Palace and the Parkland Around It

Woodstock has Blenheim at its edge, roughly ninety minutes from central London, and the approach is theatrical on purpose: through an arch you come, and palace, lake, bridge and park arrive all together. Vanbrugh raised it as a monument rather than a home, and it reads exactly that way. Look properly at the State Rooms and they will take a good two hours. That long library alone justifies the drive.

Outdoors is where the day opens up. Flooding the valley in the 1760s to create the Great Lake, Capability Brown half-submerged Vanbrugh's Grand Bridge in the process, which explains why it looks as it does now. Around all this run two thousand acres of parkland. West of the house lie the Formal Gardens, the Water Terraces and the walled Rose Garden, a pleasure entirely separate from the interiors.

Born at Blenheim, Churchill lies buried at Bladon, in a village churchyard two miles away, under a grave that is startlingly modest set against everything else the day has contained. Ten minutes covers the visit, and hardly anyone comes away regretting it. Woodstock itself, sitting immediately outside the gates, is a handsome stone town with good places to eat and a very civilised way of finishing an afternoon.

Here is how we work. We provide the car and the chauffeur, nothing beyond that and nothing implied by it. Yours holds no guide licence and will not walk the house with you. Palace admission you arrange yourselves, and the grounds shut earlier through winter, so we will suggest a departure time that leaves you enough daylight to use. Want a qualified guide travelling with you for the day? That can be arranged.