Memories of Woodstock

The antiquity of Woodstock is not measured by a thousand years and Blenheim is heir to all the memories of Woodstock - Winston Churchill

Last Sunday week, I went to Blenheim Palace to explore the grounds as part of some research about gardens as entertainment venues. I also wanted to search out the site of the medieval palace of Woodstock, where Elizabeth I was kept under house arrest as a princess. She had been granted liberty to walk in the gardens and often re-visited the palace as Queen, having appointed her Champion Knight Sir Henry Lee as keeper. The above dusky photo shows Sir John Vanbrugh's monumental bridge taken from across the River Glyme at the site of the ancient palace of Woodstock, with Blenheim in the background.

Spring or summer would obviously have been better choice for a visit, but last week was my last chance to see an exhibition on "Gulliver's Travels" (Blenheim is the location for a new 21st Century Fox film, starring Jack Black, Jason Segel and Billy Connolly: see www.gulliverstravelsmovie.co.uk for a fun trailer - opens Boxing Day). Sunday was the exhibition's closing day, and, as I discovered when I arrived, the final day that the house was open this year - it re-opens in mid-February.

I was lucky with the weather - that Sunday there was a thaw, with temperatures around 6', till lately what we'd have expected for December. The mild day made quite a contrast with the end of the week, when, along with much of the country, Brighton had been snowbound. There was even some lovely sunshine, and the low sunlight on the golden stone made the palace look more beautiful and strangely mirage-like.

About half an hour from Woodstock, I stopped at some services, reluctantly. Sitting there with a Starbucks, feeling both disorientated and coming to, thanks to the caffeine, there floated over the sound of a silver band - "Joy to the World", of all things. Only in Oxford . . . they even have classy services . . . The band was made up of amateur musicians who obviously played for the love of it (and had clearly been together a long time) - and, so I heard, donations helped keep them going.

By coincidence, another reason I'd wanted to make it that Sunday was that Blenheim was holding special festivities to end the season in style, with the City of Oxford silver band playing in the Great Hall and two choirs in the library (from Marlborough and Cranford House).

Approaching the palace, there were Christmas trees for sale outside, and in the grand courtyard it was fun to see trees between the columns. There was a huge crowd of visitors, but thanks to the enormity of the complex, there was just enough space, and people were in a good mood.

It was a little incongruous, in some ways, though, to see Christmas trees and cannons together. Maybe, a sign of progress, though?

The "Gulliver's Travels" exhibition alone was worth the trip. The high ceilings were hung with miniature red and white striped air balloons with tiny, cube-shaped wicker baskets. Holly wreaths crowned the busts like haloes, comically transforming their solemn appearance. There were Lilliputian homes (dolls' houses) and costumes from the film. My eye was also caught by something not part of the exhibition, a case of miniature lead soldiers from France, modelled on a selection of regiments who fought under Napoleon, which Churchill had wanted displayed in the palace.

The exhibition's star attraction was the sumptuous feast for a giant in the saloon: the enormous table was decorated with gold to replicate the banquet scene filmed in the Great Court. (Photographs weren't allowed but, hopefully, I'll be able to add some official ones soon.) There was a huge chair at the end of the table, an outsize plate and cutlery and a huge flute glass. In the film, so I heard from one of the helpful guides, the table stretched from the palace's front door to the centre of the courtyard, and Gulliver's chair was suitably massive (in the novel, an inhabitant of Lilliput measures the height of your hand; Gulliver was as tall as the tallest trees there).

The tricks of scale were fun, and I enjoyed listening to people's comments. On the huge wine glass - "I like the glass . . ." and "How many bottles would fit in that?" On Gulliver's chair: "That's a big chair"; a little girl beside me repeated "gigantic" in an awed voice, thoroughly enjoying the spectacle.

In the Red Drawing Room, I took in John Singer Sergent's portrait of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough clad in black armour and looking darkly handsome, as well as the chimneypiece adorned with Cupid and Psyche by Sir William Chambers. There was a magnificent view of the lawn, which in classic Capability Brown style seems both to sweep up to the house and roll to the horizon at the same time; and just above the window ledge you could see white roses.

A lady came to join me at the window and, turning to me, said, "Imagine having that as your view in the morning". An unfathomable thought. When visiting Blenheim, I wondered how many people imagine what it would be like to live there - for some reason, though, the idea of actually living in an historic house doesn't occur to me. I tend to be more drawn to speculate what it might have been like to have lived there originally - and also how the current family live there now. Or, if it's owned by the National Trust or English Heritage, how it's looked after and presented to people, as well as enjoyed.

It was interesting to come upon the bed of white roses on the way back from a wander round the grounds. And that what turned out to be my favourite planting of the day was something I'd first seen inside the house - white roses giving on to baroque gardens and a view of the lawn. The purity and delicacy of the frozen roses struck me as an unlikely but satisfying counterweight to the stately arched windows of the facade.

The last time I was at Blenheim (my second visit there) was to give a talk at the Independent Woodstock Literary Festival a couple of years ago. Afterwards, I walked to the ha ha at the edge of the great court, pictured left; it was a very warm summer's day, and the sheer scale of the place then deterred me from venturing into the grounds. But I knew I'd be back.

So it was satisfying this time to see the gardens properly - though obviously not at their best, they're architectural, with statuary, paths and topiary.
I was more interested in the woodland walks and the lake, in any case. Top of my list was Brown's newly restored cascade, which cleverly conceals the mighty dam. I was also determined to explore the site of Woodstock Palace and, if possible, to go in search of Rosamund's well, where Henry II rendezvoused with his mistress the Fair Rosamund. This was an elaborate banqueting house, with a water garden inside a garden: John Evelyn's delicate drawing memorably captures the chain of pools.

This posting has run on a bit, so I'll just show a few more pictures and try to cut down on the comments. (More details to follow in another shape or form, maybe.) First up, the cascade, which you hear before you see, since the path leading down the slope is curved. At a distance, the sound is gentle, a kind of rustling, then as I drew nearer, it became a torrential rushing of water, crisscrossing ravines. The pictures here can't do it justice, you have to experience it for yourself, but the sound effects are magnifed thanks to Brown's ingenious design, and disporportionate to the apparently modest scale of the cascade.
The dam holds back 570,000 cubic metres of water from the River Glyme, and the resulting 45-hectare lake is 7m deep in places. There was ice on the rocks; the water was clear, the foam snow-white and the yellow stone glowed. I was also impressed by the wildlife (plenty of happy ducks in the pool below the cascade).

There's a new path leading up to a viewing platform. Seeing the cascade from above is quite vertiginous (again, you have to see it for yourself), but it's the acoustics that really impress: the sound is ferocious. As the notes explain, the rocks were placed "so as to create as much movement and noise as possible". It's a kind of hydraulic conjuring act, you could say. There's a sense of the astonishing power of water - yet, after all the sound and fury, when I wandered up a woodland path on the other side of the dam, the lake above was as still as a mirror.

On the way back up to the palace, I walked through vivid red woods (copper beeches). Just to the left, the lake was eerily motionless. There was some novel planting in the shape of bamboos next to bull rushes. You feel miles away from everything yet soon enough the path rears up and you see the towers of Blenheim just above the trees.

A quick few last pictures to finish: a highlight from the point of view of looking at the garden as a venue of kinds, the Temple of Artemis (Diana, the huntress goddess), where Winston Churchill proposed to Clementine while they were sheltering during a downpour, 10th August 1908. They had just been for a stroll around the rose garden. This stately little Greek temple is certainly situated in a lovely spot. There's a dreamy view of Brown's magnificent lake, which moves from wide to narrow, resembling a river in the distance, one of the designer's trademark optical illusions.

I'd had such a good time, dusk was falling by the time I crossed Vanbrugh's bridge in search of the site of Woodstock palace. It was a wonderful vantage point for the bridge and palace; I also loved the little island planted with russet trees in the middle of the lake (which again, Brown the conjuror at work, resembles a river at this point). A couple of swans, luminous in the twilight, completed the romantic picture.
According to my map, Rosamund's well was somewhere by the water's edge and looked fairly off the beaten track (for its probable location see the clearing between trees, on the opposite side of the bridge to the site of the old palace, pictured below). Light was fading fast, and so it would have to wait.
On the way back to the car park, there was a happy atmosphere. Blenheim is so huge and there's so much to see that you're bound to end up tired out, in good way - which is how everyone seemed to me on the way homeward.
In the springtime, I'll return to see more of the gardens, especially the Secret Garden (restored in 2004), and for further exploration of the memories of Woodstock.