WOODSTOCK | Home of Blenheim Palace

Alice Tepper Marlin (L) and your
blogger. Photo by Chris Oakley.

NEW YORK CITY, December 28, 2018–Earlier this year, Alice and I visited the original Woodstock, with our nephew Chris:

• This is the one near Oxford, not the Woodstock in upstate New York where the hippies went and started the music festival and now some good friends live. 
• Not the one in Vermont where people ski and Alice broke her leg skiing on Suicide Six and her nephew Bruce ran an Inn for many years.
• No, we visited the one by Blenheim Palace outside of Oxford, reached via Woodstock Road, where the townspeople near the Palace do their shopping.

Alice in front of the Woodstock (Oxon.) Pharmacy.

Blenheim Palace is where Winston S. [for Spencer] Churchill was born, two months prematurely.

He couldn't wait to get to work.

The palace was built by the first Duke of Marlborough to celebrate his important victory over Louis XIV. Without the brilliant military leadership of the Duke, Britain might have come under the sway of the Sun King.

Today, it shares a few characteristics of the Woodstock in New York. It is picturesque, well-preserved and dominated by arts and crafts institutions.

We went through Blenheim Palace, which was the site of a ball I attended in 1963 while I was at Oxford.

Arms of the Duke of Marlborough. 

Today it is open for tours and the palace is signposted and documented inside like a museum.

It's an easy trip from Oxford and could be managed in half a day. Those interested in coats of arms could admire the many examples from the Duke of Marlborough.