Blenheim Palace

A couple of days ago I blogged about the Butterfly House at Blenheim Palace, now is time to blog about Blenheim Palace. It is such a lovely place with so many wonderful things to see. I loved it and I would gladly visit it again, as I haven’t seen everything. Blenheim Palace is known for its connection with Winston Churchill, where he was born.

I’m going to start by talking about the tickets. The price is not exactly cheap, but if you agree for them to consider it as a donation, you can exchange it for an yearly pass. Of course, you need to take into consideration how often you might visit them, but this pass allows you access to events like jousting or the food fair. If you live relatively close by, it’s a great offer. As it happened, we’ve exchanged our tickets for yearly passes and we used it the following day. We were in a hurry the first day, having only 2 hours to spare and that is not enough to visit the house, the pleasure gardens including the Butterfly House, and the park. So, we went again for another couple of hours the following day, before returning home. Furthermore, it is an UNESCO World Heritage Site, so you might be tempted to visit it more than once.

This is a painting of the first Duke of Marlborough and his family.

There are room guides in all rooms and they are more than happy to answer any questions. You can also get an audio guide; we didn’t this time.

I’ve recognized this tapestry, with the battle of Blenheim, to the delight of the room guide. I must have seen it in one of the books I’ve been reading or in a documentary, but I can’t remember where. Of course, it was lovely to see it displayed on the wall.

The long library is a stunning room, very long, as the name suggests and with lots and lots of books on the walls. There is also a statue of Queen Anne, very appropriate, considering that she was the one that gave the dukedom to John Churchill.

I was surprised to see an organ in the library, that is quite unusual.

There is a permanent exhibition entitled The Churchill Exhibition, but I haven’t visit it. I will keep it in mind for next time. Outside there are so many things to see as well.

Near the stables there is a timeline with details about military endeavours taken by the Duke of Malborough and Winston Churchill.

The Formal Gardens are beautiful and you can go on a walk around the lake. On a sunny day it must be wonderful.

This is the Harry Potter tree. They filmed it here, how unexpected was that.

The Miniature Train is fun and also very handy on a rainy day. It is only 50p per person per journey, between Blenheim Palace and the Pleasure Gardens. There is a timetable, so you know how much you have to wait. We’ve decided to go for a coffee at the Pizza Cafe at the Pleasure Gardens before the first train ride.

There is a maze, but it didn’t seem like a good idea on a day when it started to rain every other 15 minutes, so we skipped that. But we could admire this model village, a recreation of Woodstock.

Blenheim Palace is in Woodstock, OX20 1PP, Oxfordshire. They offer free parking. There are Upstairs and Downstairs tours for £5 per person (each tour) and Buggy Tours of the Lake for £4 per person. You would need to book tickets for the tours. We didn’t have time, but we would consider it in the future.