This is an odd choice for a New Year’s image, I know; but there’s a warmth in the bogus colours that gives me the feeling that I’m about to be really well fed. 

I’m not a scholar of English country houses, but, with the passage of time, even Buck House seems less peculiar than Blenheim. Blenheim is beyond the English-country-house thing. It’s a (mini) Versailles waiting to be appreciated as such. Only a Queen (Anne) would have tolerated its construction. All the other Great Houses are the country seats of Whigs, but Blenheim, as the postcard says, is a “palace.” In that, it exceeds its original.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 12:47 am and is filed under Noblesse Oblige. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.