Dramatis persona*

helenhead Helen Chick

I've always wanted a bumper sticker that said "I'm a female, LDS/Mormon, Scout leading, geocaching, piano-playing, bicycling, mathematics educator with a PhD in maths ... and I VOTE"!

I think this makes me a minority group of cardinality 1!

* Since there's only one of me and "personae" is plural (I think), I've gone with dramatis persona.
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“The stucco on your baronial castle is scarcely dry”

bBlenheimPalaceSaturday 7 Nov

With the weather forecast looking good for the day I donned my cycling gear and decided to head north-west to visit Blenheim Palace.

[I accidentally keep calling it a castle, but it isn’t. I’m not sure of the distinction but I suspect palaces are posher … and maybe castles are built for territorial defence.]

Blenheim Palace was the first Duke of Marlborough’s reward for winning some battles in France and Spain for Queen Anne. Apparently he was a pretty good leader and strategist, and the victories increased English influence although without giving them total domination. Actually, Anne didn’t give him a palace, just the land, the money, and (if I remember correctly) the right to call it a palace. The palace took ages to build, and there was a bit of a falling out with Queen Anne in the process that reduced the funds available and delayed proceedings, but eventually it was finished in around 1722. The Duke of Marlborough line is essentially Churchills and Spencers—yes, those Spencers and those Churchills: Winston was born at Blenheim although he was a cousin rather than in line to the dukedom. We’re now up to the 11th Duke, who lives in the palace for some of the year, but turning the palace into a tourist attraction became a necessity to fund all the upkeep and restoration work. [It’s been interesting reading wikipedia’s version of people and history and comparing them with what I heard and read today. Most of the facts match, but the tone and colour varies!]

It is a massive building, and the view above right shows the south facade, which does not even contain the main entrance (that is shown below left, and there’s a better version on the additional photos page). The west wing (left half) is open to the public and the lower storey rooms are all stately palacey type rooms, while the second storey rooms have been fitted out with some effective interpretive displays highlighting the history of the people and the place. For example, the first Duchess of Marlborough was something of a termagant—determined and interfering—and yet she left her lady’s maid some £16,000 in her will.

bFireAlarm bBYOWaterfall

Shortly after arriving (it’s about an 18km bike ride from Oxford) I was standing in the main courtyard wondering if I was going to be able to have a breaking headline for the blog entry: “The Great Fire of Blenheim” or some-such. I was just on my way into the palace when the fire alarm went off and we were evacuated (with about the same efficiency and meandering as an evacuation of the Doug McDonell building: I’m not entirely sure that the place where everyone is standing in the photo above left is actually the designated evacuation point!), and it was quite a while after opening time before we could head back in.

The ground storey rooms were quite impressive (if you’re into ornate ostentation!), with some magnificent tapestries of the first Duke’s victories that took 11 years to create, a room painted in the trompe l’oeil style (made to look three-dimensional, complete with ceiling “plasterwork” that looked like a relief but was totally flat), a huge piece of silverware that takes over a day to polish and needs a map to put it back together again, a vast library room (although all of the original library was sold off to pay debts by one of the earlier dukes) complete with massive pipe organ, some magnificent examples of French cabinet making, and a couple of quirky models of the castle: one a cake, and the other made of matchsticks built by some guy who completed it using a single photo as a point of reference.

The other thing that Blenheim Palace is famous for (besides the palace) is the landscaping. At the time the palace was built there was an initial design, but the whole place was later revamped by the famous Capability Brown (and there has been some other work since). Blenheim is regarded as one of his definitive works. If you don’t have a lake, or a big waterfall, just get someone like Capability Brown to design them for you (provided your estates are big enough: the lake at Blenheim is more than big enough to accommodate a large village). Actually the cascades and dam for the lake have been undergoing some refurbishment which is nearly but not quite finished (the whole idea that “we need to fix the waterfall” is a bit weird). There are a range of different garden types in the area, all well-maintained, with some trying for faux-naturale, others with ornate formality and water features, vast grassed areas manicured within an inch of its life, and there’s even a secret garden with winding paths and many different species of plants.

bWaterTerrace bVictoryColumn bColumnStatue

On a hill opposite the palace, about 750m away, there is a huge “Victory Column” to commemorate the first Duke’s battles. It’s over 40m high … and this week it is in the middle of a paddock full of sheep. (It might not be next week, but only because the sheep have been moved, not the column.) The four faces of the base of the pillar are probably 2m square and carved with dense text about the Duke’s battles and then the three acts of parliament granting him the lands and money and titles. Zzzzz!

bColumnBase bPalaceFromColumn

bCowsHaving “done” Blenheim I then headed back towards Oxford, knowing that it was going to be dark around 4:30pm. I wanted to pick up at least one cache along the way (there are a couple around Blenheim itself, but one had too many muggles nearby (and had had several DNFs, suggesting it isn’t even there) and I didn’t have time for the longer walk of the other one).

As it happened, I managed to sign two log books even though I only picked up one cache. I was just getting oriented after cycling up towards a choice of tracks near the first one, when I came across three people on the track. Their accoutrements and conversation gave them away, and I let them know that I, too, was looking for what they had just located. Thus it was that I got to add my moniker to the log without actually having found the cache.

The second cache I found after cycling along a very muddy bridleway. It was an easy find, but I was rather bemused by the bovine greeting party! They were on the other side of the stile, so I could chat to them without worrying about the consequences of offending them … although, as I later realised, there was an open gate about 150m away connecting their field to mine. There must have been about 20 of them, crowded around a gap in the hedge, gazing bucolically at this madwoman pursuing plastic containers.

There was a hint of “Thou shalt not pass” about their attitude, though, which was vaguely disturbing! 🙂

As usual, there are more photos, available here.

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