Nowadays, successful British commanders get medals and titles, but in 1704, as a thank-you for his victory over the French at the battle of Blenheim, Queen Anne gave John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722) the royal estate of Woodstock, along with the promise of enough cash to build himself a gargantuan palace.

	Enter a city
	or select a destination
	Select dates
	Arrival: Departure:
	Guests and rooms
	Guests: Rooms:

Work started promptly on Blenheim Palace (mid-March to Oct daily 10.30am-5.30pm; £9.50) with the principal architect being Sir John Vanbrugh. The end result is the country's grandest example of Baroque civic architecture, an Italianate palace that is more a monument than a house. The interior is stuffed with paintings and tapestries, plus all manner of objets d'art , including furniture from Versailles, and stone and marble carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The ceiling of the Great Hall sports painted allegories celebrating Marlborough's martial skills and the Dining Saloon holds murals by Louis Laguerre, but frankly it's hard to warm to all this conspicuous consumption. Neither is the guided tour conducive to much idle rumination, with guides whisking visitors through the palace in about an hour. As for the Marlboroughs, John Churchill was one of the few members of the clan to have made anything but a poor impression, the spectacular exception being Sir Winston Churchill , born here in 1874. Several rooms are dedicated to the wartime prime minister, who is buried with his wife in the graveyard of Bladon Church , visible from the palace.       

Formal gardens (mid-March to Oct daily 10.30am-5.30pm; entry covered by ticket to palace) flank the house, but the open parkland (daily 9am-4.45pm; £2, £6 for cars, including passengers) is more enticing, especially just north of the house, where the ground falls away dramatically to an exquisite artificial lake, Queen Pool. It's said that Capability Brown, who landscaped the grounds, laid out the trees and avenues to represent the battle of Blenheim. Whatever the truth of the tale, fine vistas fan out in every direction, including one from Vanbrugh's Grand Bridge, over the main lake, up to the Column of Victory, erected by Sarah Jennings and topped by a statue of her husband posing heroically in a toga.

There are two entrances to Blenheim, one just south of Woodstock on the Oxford road and another through the Triumphal Arch at the end of Park Street in Woodstock itself.

Copyright Rough Guides Ltd as trustee for its authors. Published by Rough Guides.
All rights reserved.The Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd.