Blenheim Palace and Oxford
Jun 25–27 in Belgium ⋅ ☀️ 35 °C
We returned the car - with its blessed, wonderful air conditioning - and made our sweaty way to Woodstock, where, at the start of the 18th century, after winning numerous battles in the War of Spanish Succession (in particular, the Battle of Blenheim), John Churchill was appointed Duke of Marlborough and given some land and money to build the modest residence that occupies the site today - Blenheim Palace.
About 170 years later, Jennie, Lady Randolph Churchill was visiting her in-laws when she felt a twinge; some short time later young Winston emerged on to the scene. Whether he was smoking a cigar at the time is a matter for conjecture.
The Festival of Blenheim begins, we were told, on 27 June and features artists such as Katy Perry and Michael Buble. This explained the army of workers and their vehicles swarming over the courtyard in the centre of the palace known as the Great Court, installing a stage, sound equipment and about seven thousand seats. It was a pity, really, as dumping a portable arena into the middle of a stately home kind of spoiled the ambience a bit.
The building, though, is magnificent, although the roof is being replaced and it is covered in scaffolding and there is a fake ceiling in the entrance hall.
We looked at the palace rooms, the formal gardens, the downstairs and numerous pieces of Winston (with an “i”) memorabilia, and enjoyed them all. The scale and grandeur of the place was astounding, and we barely touched on a skerrick of the whole thing.
The following day we went to Oxford.
Christ Church College was founded in 1525, when Thomas Wolsey threw the monks out of St Frideswide’s Priory and built a fancy college on the land.
It is indeed a beautiful set of buildings, surrounded on one side by bucolic English countryside and the other by a brace of other university colleges. The history of the place seems to ooze out everywhere.
We were quite taken with the Great Hall, seemingly inspirational for some Hogwarts scenes in the Harry Potter films, and the Tom Quad, with its Christopher Wren-designed tower.
It was also the end of Trinity Term for the students. There were many wandering around in their sub fusc outfits of white shirt and black trousers or skirt, having finished their exams. A white carnation indicated finishing a first exam, a pink an intermediate and a red a final exam. There were no doubt to be a lot of busy pubs that afternoon.
We also climbed the 127 stairs up the tower of the University Church of St Mary the Virgin. The view, once we negotiated the steep and uneven spiral staircase, and the sometimes very squeezy passing of people going in the other direction, was stunning.
We were adjacent to the beautiful Radcliffe Camera, and had a marvellous view of all the sights of Oxford.
This is the end of our time in England for this trip, next up we have a few days in Brussels.Read more