BURDEN OF COSTLY PALACES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7871, 5 August 1911, Page 10

BURDEN OF COSTLY PALACES

Tho Coronation Ball which tbo Duke of Marlborough is to give at Blenheim Palace should (says M A.P,” on June 3rd) make a prodigiously fine spectacle, seeing that it will take place in the longest room in England. Blenheim is..indeed, a wonderful place ’from the point of view of spaciousness. It is an open, secret that the huge mjajLsion has always been a whit© elephant to the Marlborough family; and no won der, lor only a Rockefeller or a Carnegie could afford to run the place in accordance with its vast requirements. The very park in which it stands is a dozen miles m circuit, and contains a lake so extensive tnat its designer said, ‘The Thame© will never forgive mo for what 1 have done at Woodstock.” Tho mansion's imposing front stretches 116 yards, while as lor its windows tho Late Duke used to say tuat they, required £BCO worth of putty ©very year to keep tho'pones in order! Another good Blenheim story is to tho effect that on one occasion a Government messenger wont there with Important despatches for lord Randolph Churchill, and it took Trim three-quarters of an hour to locate his Lordship, who had been amusing himself by raoing up and down the j fifteen staircases and exploring th© hundred' and twenty rooms. In time, perhaps,’ Blenheim will become a possession of the nation or a Royal palace, for only th© State (nest to Carnegie or Rockefeller) could keep it in adequate repair. When last th© place was “done up” its ducal owner had to soil his pictures and books to pay tho bills, which amounted to ovc.’ £SCw.(X>O, one canvas alone, the Ansidei Madonna, bringing in £70,000.