Blenheim Palace

BLENHEIM PALACE

A country house built between 1706 and 1729 by Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor for the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough. The palace was presented by Queen Anne to John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, to commemorate his decisive defeat of the French army at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704, and was conceived as a "Royall and a National Monument" that would outclass English royal palaces and rival the Baroque palaces of Europe in size and splendour. Its design draws on important influences including Versailles, medieval castle architecture, and Elizabethan architecture, particularly Wollaton Hall.

The house is constructed in limestone ashlar with rusticated corner towers and details, lead roofs, and stone stacks. It comprises four corner towers arranged around a Great Court to the north, flanked by Stable Court to the east and Kitchen Court to the west, in Baroque style with two storeys throughout. All windows are fitted with sashes.

The north front features a central nine-bay façade articulated by a giant order of Corinthian pilasters, with a three-bay pedimented portico. The tympanum is carved with the Marlborough Arms, whilst the pediment and parapet display figures of Britannia and chained slaves, and centurions, all carved by Grinling Gibbons. Behind the portico sits a huge cleft open pediment with clerestory windows to the Great Hall ranged to the rear. Curved quadrants articulated by Doric engaged columns link this façade to the corner towers, which feature banded rustication, arched windows, and bracketed cornices. The superstructure of each tower is crowned with curved flying buttresses and pinnacles of reversed fleurs-de-lys, piled-up cannonballs, and ducal coronets.

Colonnades with engaged Doric columns and carved military achievements by Gibbons flank eleven-bay blocks, each with rusticated archways in the centre leading to the Kitchen and Stable Courts. These archways are flanked by banded Doric columns and surmounted by carvings of the Lion of England savaging the Cock of France. Clock towers behind each archway feature interlocking pediments with ball finials. Seven-bay end blocks have rusticated Doric pilasters to the pedimented centres of their north façades.

The east and west fronts each have central full-height bow windows, with caryatids to the west, and similar corner towers to the south. The south front displays a tall nine-bay façade to the centre, articulated by a giant order of Corinthian pilasters progressing to columns in the central portico. The entablature of the portico is surmounted by a bust of Louis XIV, taken from the city gates of Tournai after its sack in 1709. The roof is ornamented with finials and military carvings by Grinling Gibbons.

The Kitchen Court to the west features a castellated parapet and arcading to north and south with heavy open-pedimented Doric porches. The east gateway, which houses a water cistern, is flanked by obelisk-shaped pillars resting on cannonballs and features cast-iron gates of around 1890, together with garlands and statues in niches by Sir William Chambers, created 1766 to 1775. The Orangery to the south of the Kitchen Court has an arcaded front with sashes and a heavy Doric porch of two orders with open pediment.

The Great Court in front of the palace was remodelled by Achille Duchene in 1910. Military trophies carved by Grinling Gibbons flank the steps in front of the portico. The low ashlar walls surrounding the court have piers with wheatear festoons over medallions and flaming urns at the piers in the angles of the south-east and south-west corners. Wrought-iron gates to the front are flanked by scrolled ironwork panels.

The interior contains numerous rooms of exceptional importance. The Great Hall features three-tier arcades and Corinthian columns and cornices carved by Grinling Gibbons, and is crowned with a ceiling painted by Sir James Thornhill in 1716 depicting Marlborough presenting the plan of the Battle of Blenheim to Britannia. Vaulted stone corridors link the Great Hall to the east and west wings.

The stairs to the left of the Great Hall are fitted with an iron balustrade, continued in front of a gallery above a proscenium arch with the arms of Queen Anne carved by Gibbons. This leads from the Hall to the Saloon to the rear. The Saloon features a marble fireplace by Townesend, marble doorcases with carved shells to the keys by Grinling Gibbons, and walls and ceiling decorated in 1719 to 1720 by Louis Laguerre.

A suite of three rooms to the left (east) of the Saloon has plasterwork ceilings by Hawksmoor and marble fireplaces by Sir William Chambers, with scrolls, eagles and phoenixes in the coving of the ceilings dating to around 1890. A suite of three State Rooms to the right (west) of the Saloon features tapestries by Judocus de Vos depicting Marlborough's victories, with the remainder of the set elsewhere in the house. These rooms have fireplaces by Gibbons and Chambers, and Rococo decoration of around 1890 with inset portraits set in gilt frames. The First State Room contains a portrait of the 9th Duchess by Duran, the Second State Room a portrait of Louis XIV by Mignard, and the Third State Room a portrait of Colonel Armstrong with Marlborough by Seeman, all set in overmantels over fireplaces.

The Long Library, described as "Hawksmoor's finest room", has plasterwork by Isaac Mansfield and marble doorcases, together with a giant order of Doric pilasters with triglyph frieze by Peisley and Townesend. Carved wood bookcases and marble fireplaces, attributed to Hawksmoor or William Kent, have pedimented overmantels framing paintings of seascape and landscape by Wootton after Poussin and Ore, surmounted by busts by Rysbrack. A Statue of Queen Anne and bust of Marlborough by Rysbrack is present, the latter on a pedestal by Chambers. At the ends of the Long Library are galleried bays with consoles supporting pierced balustrades, and an organ of 1871 to the north bay.

The corridor to the Great Hall contains a marble basin, probably by Vanbrugh. The Private Apartments in the East Wing were not inspected at the time of listing; however, the central Bow Window Room has wood Corinthian columns and a marble fireplace by Gibbons, whilst the Grand Cabinet and Duchess's Drawing Room contain fireplaces by Chambers. Fireplaces by Gibbons are noted in the basement.

The Chapel, designed by Hawksmoor, features giant fluted pilasters and plasterwork. The Monument to the Duke of Marlborough, dating to 1733, was designed by William Kent and executed by Rysbrack as a Baroque figure composition set in a niche with medallion portraits and military trophies in plasterwork panels. The chapel also contains statues of Randolph Churchill (1895) and the 7th Duke of Marlborough (1883). The organ case, reredos, pulpit and benches date to around 1890 and are by T.G. Jackson.

The 8th Duke, who succeeded in 1883, was chairman of the New Telephone Company and installed the earliest domestic telephone system in Britain at Blenheim. Late 19th-century telephone sets remain in the Long Library and in the estate office in the Kitchen Court.

Notable furnishings include: in the west corridor connecting the Great Hall to the Long Library, 18th-century Flemish statues of a nymph and youth from the Parodi workshop, together with 18th-century Italian statues of Emperor Vespasian and Caracalla, Cardinal Delfino and Cardinal Borromeo. The Great Hall contains two bronze statues by Soldani, removed from the East Formal Garden, an early 18th-century statue of Bacchus by Michael Vandervoort, Alexander the Great (partly Roman), a Roman bust of Emperor Hadrian, and an 18th-century statue of Emperor Scipio Africanus.

Among the masons employed on the construction were the Peisley family and William Townesend, who also worked on other buildings in Blenheim Park.