A visit to Blenheim Palace

After seeing Cinderella yesterday Sophie said she'd love to visit a palace...so we did! We had a lovely day sight-seeing at the very beautiful Blenheim Palace near Oxford. It took us just over an hour to drive there and first up was a cup of coffee in the very pleasant cafe.

We sat and decided what to do as there was a Jousting display going on in the grounds, with birds of prey and people could try their hand at Archery. We went into the Palace itself first and marvelled at the gorgeous works of art, china and furniture. Blenheim Palace was built in the 1700s and is home to the Dukes and Duchesses of Marlborough. The 12th Duke lives there today with his wife and family.
Sir Winston Churchill was born at Blenheim Palace so there was a lot of mention of him, as well as his ancestor, also Winston Churchill, who was a military leader.

We had a good look at all the rooms that were open to the public.

This room is used once a year for Christmas and the table can seat up to 40!

We couldn't believe how many books there were in the library! And some of them looked so old.

The long library

Coronation robes

After a quick visit to the chapel we made our way out into the gardens. In the distance we could see the Jousting display and a lot of people had gone there first. We wandered over to the Secret garden where it was beautiful and peaceful,

There were some gorgeous plants in the garden and we saw a robin!

A couple of weeks ago the display of daffodils must have been a sight to see! They were planted everywhere but sadly the flowers had faded. However, we did see lots of blossom so that made up for it a little bit!

We walked over the South Lawn towards the Jousting, stopping to try and work out the age of some of the majestic Cedar trees on the way. They looked like they were planted when building started on the house in 1705.

Sophie trying to count the rings on the bark of a tree!

The house looked beautiful from the South Lawn.

We decided to have a bite to eat near the Jousting but we were a bit dismayed to see the long queue waiting at the stall selling beefburgers. We saw that the Hog Roast stall was a bit quieter so we went there and enjoyed a beautiful pork bap served with coleslaw. It was a bit messy to eat so we leaned against a wall but we were moved on by a member of staff as the horses were due to come through to start the jousting. Everywhere we went seemed to have been in the way so we abandoned the whole area and made our way over to the lakeside walk which was much quieter.

We discovered the grounds had been designed by Capability Brown and he was responsible for the "Cascade":

By now the sun had come out in full force and it was an absolutely beautiful day, with blue skies and fluffy white clouds. It became quite warm and I was glad I'd left my coat and umbrella in the car!

We made our way back to the house and unfortunately, hordes of other people had had the same idea. They were streaming away from the Jousting display and I just knew there would be a queue for the loos and the cafe where we were hoping to have a cup of tea and a slice of cake.

As predicted the queue for the loos was horrendous and the cafe, so peaceful and quiet when we first arrived, was rammed with people all with the same idea as us. We had a quick look in the gift shop and decided to leave and perhaps find a cafe on the way home.

The grounds in front of the house were full of cars and I think we made the right decision to leave when we did. The great thing about today was that you could use the entrance ticket to upgrade to an annual pass...for free! We'll definitely be back and maybe we'll bring a picnic next time and sit down by the lake.

The journey home was smooth but we decided to go to the Gallone's ice-cream parlour in Northampton for a sundae, which both of us fancied. However, even in this we were thwarted as the queue stretched out of the door and was going nowhere fast! We gave up, called into work to do the Booker order and had a Magnum instead!

Back home we discovered that Mike had gone to see friends in Brixworth and Keith had made a cottage pie for dinner with the leftover beef joint we had on Sunday. I took him to the pub and then did most of the dinner before picking him and Mike up later in the evening. The lovely weather of earlier gave way to torrential rain and it's set to continue this week. Good job we made the most of the lovely weather while we could!