Blenheim Palace

The Great Court

This court forms the dramatic prelude to the main front of the palace. But remember to look back at the coroneted dial and see the two grotesque lions savaging the p rotesting cocks of France. These are among the best stonework of Grinling Gibbons, who was responsible at Blenheim for enrichments in stone and marble to the tune of just over £4,000, Gibbons also did much of the work on the roofs. In this Great Court, as well as the lions (£25 each), there are his trophies on the colonnades (£40 each), and his Marlborough coat of arms (£75) in the tympanum of the portico. Gibbons' workshop was in the stables block (the only part of the west court completed) and out of it came all the urns, vases and finials and most of the statues. For Pallas on the north pediment he charged £28, and for each of the chained captives above her he charged the same.

Much has had to be renewed here, m ainly in the form of finials and statues; and to Charles 9th Duke of Marlborough, we owe the most ambitious restoration of all. With his French architect, Achille Duchene, he worked to restore the setting of Blenheim as far as possible in accordance with Vanbrugh's original design. To some extent he was bound to compromise. He made no attempt to re-establish the Great Parterre on the south side, but he laid out two delightful formal gardens, on the east and on the west. He did not, after much consideratio n, carry out Vanbrugh's conception of a monolithic gate and colonnade to enclose the Great Court, but he did skilfully undo 'Capability' Brown's abuse of this same forecourt and entirely repaved it (1900-10). Another of his achievements was the replanting of the Great Avenue of elms, which stretched 3,000 yards (2,700 metres) from the Column of Victory to the Ditchley Gate, and was said, albeit on slight authority, to represent the lines of the opposing armies as they stood arrayed at the Battle of Blenheim.

Blenheim had first to be a monument to the Queen's glory. This had to be achieved within the limits of contemporary conventions which insisted on symmetry, formality and a disposition of state rooms - ante-room, drawing-room, bedroom - from which there could be no deviation. For any architect, let alone one of short expe rience, the task was all but superhuman; and yet it is hard if not impossible to imagine any other architect, of any age, accomplishing that task so well.

It is not only the size of the buildings and courts (covering 7 acres) which makes it impossib le to see and judge Blenheim at a glance. Vanbrugh planned, as Wren always insisted, 'in perspective'. As a result the building is 'good' from almost all points of the compass and from varying distances, though perhaps least so head-on to its main fronts and at close quarters to them. Blenheim can be exciting to look at in all seasons and at all hours; never more so than by moonlight or by floodlight. Here on the north front it surges to its crescendo. It is the supreme example of the style of architectur e known as English Baroque.