Blenheim Palace

House near Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England. Blenheim is the seat of the Duke of Marlborough. Conceived as a national monument and virtually as a royal palace, it was the gift of Queen Anne and Parliament to the 1st Duke in gratitude for his victory over the army of Louis XIV at the Battle of Blenheim in 1704. It was built from 1705 to 1725, and designed by John Vanbrugh, assisted by Nicholas Hawksmoor. Grinling Gibbons supervised the carving. Blenheim Palace exemplifies Vanbrugh's style of ‘heroic architecture’.

Vanbrugh's formal gardens disappeared between 1764 and 1774 when the whole park was landscaped by Capability Brown, who made a lake and planted trees, reputedly arranged according to the battle plan at Blenheim.

Though conceived of on European lines as a baroque palace, many features of Blenheim, such as its setting, romantic skyline and freely invented ornament are wholly English and derive both from Vanbrugh's experience of the stage and his respect for Elizabethan and medieval architecture.

Joshua Reynolds called Vanbrugh ‘an architect who composed like a painter’, but he built Blenheim against the implacable opposition of the Duchess of Marlborough, who said, ‘I mortally hate all gardens and architecture’.