Blenheim Palace - The Palace Today

The Palace Today

The palace currently remains the home of the Dukes of Marlborough, the present incumbent of the title being John George Vanderbilt Spencer-Churchill, 11th Duke of Marlborough. Like his forebears he lives for part of the year in the palace, with his family occupying the same suite of rooms as the 1st Duke and Duchess.

The palace, park, and gardens are open to the public on payment of an entry fee (£20 as of April 2012). Tourist attractions include the butterfly house, a maze, a plant centre, and cafeteria, but the atmosphere is still that of a large country house. The palace is separated by a little distance from this other group of attractions (the "Pleasure Park"), and the two are linked by a free miniature railway service, the Blenheim Park Railway. The progression from home to business has been essential to the palace's survival in the 20th and 21st centuries. Varied commercial concerns include a maze, adventure playground, mini-train, gift shops, butterfly house, fishing, and even bottles of Blenheim Natural Mineral Water. Concerts and festivals are also staged in the palace and park. While the Duke retains final control over all matters in the running of the palace, the day-to-day control of commercial aspects are outsourced to Sodexo Prestige, a division of Sodexo.

Admission to the park grounds and gardens alone is £11 (as of September 2011), but there is also free access to about five miles (8 km) of public rights of way through the Great Park area of the grounds, which are accessible from Old Woodstock and from the Oxfordshire Way, and which are close to the Column of Victory.

Blenheim Natural Mineral Water is bottled on the estate and sells this water in a niche market. Game, farming and property renting are also part of the Blenheim Palace portfolio.

In the state apartments, guests are more likely to be the invitees of a large company, or a couple who have paid to marry at the palace, rather than guests of the Spencer-Churchills. However, the ducal family still entertain in the state rooms, and dine on special occasions in the saloon, around the great silver centrepiece depicting the 1st Duke of Marlborough on horseback—the same piece that Consuelo Vanderbilt liked to call her cache mari because it conveniently hid her detested husband, across the table, from view. The many residents of Blenheim have each left their mark on the palace. Today it is as likely to be used as a film location as it is to be the setting for an aristocratic house party; yet it still hosts both. Blenheim Palace remains the tribute to the 1st Duke which both his wife and the architect Sir John Vanbrugh envisaged.

Blenheim Palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.