The Palace Today
The palace 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, 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 (maximum £21 as of December 2012). Separation of tourist entertainment attractions (the "Pleasure Park") from the palace ensures that the atmosphere of a large country house is retained. The palace is linked to the park by a free miniature railway, 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, cafeteria and bottled Blenheim Natural Mineral Water. Game, farming and property rentals also provide income. Concerts and festivals are staged in the palace and park. Day-to-day control of commercial aspects are outsourced to Sodexo Prestige, a division of Sodexo, while the Duke retains final control over all matters in the running of the palace.
The public have 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.
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 from view across the table. 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 (such as Kenneth Branagh's 1996 adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet) as it is for 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.
Read more about this topic: Pipe Organs Of Blenheim Palace
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