Hanging around a small town in England

Here is a view from the relatively modern kitchen back into the 300+ year old portion of the house.  That wall would have been an exterior wall when it was constructed and it surely is about four feet thick.

Our plan for the day was the Blenheim Palace, a World Heritage site.  The Palace is the home of the 12th Duke of Marlborough, sitting on the 12,000 acre estate of the Duke.  The plan was to walk over there and get a bus back.

So along the way we again passed through parts of the village. Notably we passed near the old church and this time we went inside. Officially it is Saint Laurence's Church

A church at Combe existed by about 1141. Parts of the current building are 12th century, including the inner doorway of the north porch. The nave was rebuilt near the end of the 14th century, about 1395, and is notable for its 14th- or 15th-century stone and a set of wall paintings dating from about 1440. The church has remnants of a set of 15th-century stained glass windows. The most complete survivor is one on the southeast corner of the nave depicting Saint James the Great.

Our guide noted that this part of England was a significant early hotbed of what eventually boiled out as Methodism. The story says that John Wesley preached from the pulpit of this church at least several times.

We wandered across the village playing fields.  The fields were donated to the village in 1948 by the Duke of Marlborough.  There was a ceremony and the Duke of Edinburgh attended and planted the tree here in the foreground. In 1948 the Duke was not yet Prince, his wife Elizabeth did not become Queen until 1953.

That's the cricket ground in the background with the football pitch just a bit further along,  The old church is visible pretty much frame center beneath the branches of the tree and beyond the playing fields.

On to the Palace.  The Duke has had 12,000 acres since about 1705.  The grounds are quite a bit less than a formal garden, 12,000 is huge number of acres, about 19 square miles, too much for a formal garden.  But it all seems pretty obviously planned, complete with an artificial lake and lots of spots where things were planted.

Have a plan for planting and then wait 300 years and you get a really gorgeous landscape.  Here is a look up one of the valleys.

Eventually we came out to the Disney lake and got this view of the bridge over the lake to the main entrance of the palace.

A bit later and up to the main entrance of the house.

John Churchill was a capable military commander who won several significant military engagements during the War of Spanish Succession.  Following a victory over the French at Blenheim, Austria,  in 1702, the grateful Queen Anne decided to reward him.  He was elevated from Earl to Duke and granted tenancy of the royal manor that is now the home of the current Duke.

Along the way the Palace just happens to have been the birthplace of Winston Churchill.

This is a statue of Queen Anne located in the library of the Palace.

This is a flattering rendition, she was said to be as wide as she was tall as a result of enduring 17 pregnancies in an attempt to produce a royal heir, a result that ultimately she was not able to achieve.

Queen Anne provided much of the funding necessary for construction of the Palace but as years went along the estate was subject, as are all things, to the vagaries of the world financial scene.  By the late 19th century the 9th Duke had fallen into debt.  It was the Gilded Age in America and Alva Vanderbilt, wife of a Vanderbilt railroad millionaire, was seeking a socially advantageous match for her only daughter and eldest child.  Consuela Vanderbilt thus became the 9th Duchess of Marlborough and the Vanderbilt fortune saved the Duke from financial ruin.  It seems likely to me that at some point Anderson Cooper will be doing a CNN special.

This is the family chapel, but no, the wedding occurred at Saint Thomas Episcopal Church in New York City.

We left the Palace and walked across the lawn to the town of Woodstock.

Woodstock had been there even before the Palace was built.  Here is one of the oldest coaching inns in England, dating from the 13th century.

Famous guests over the years include Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.