Restoration & Conservation

Essential maintenance and conservation of the fabric of the awe-inspiring Palace and Gardens takes place every year.

Bouchain tapestry restored…

On 5th June, the Bouchain tapestry was returned to its rightful place in the Second State Room following sixteen months of essential conservation work by the Royal School of Needlework.

This is one of a series of 10 stunning tapestries currently hanging in the State Rooms at Blenheim Palace commissioned by 1st Duke of Marlborough to record the battles of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702 – 1714). It is an enormous task given that the tapestry measures 16 ft high by 28 ft wide and very complex because of the mixtures of silk and wool in the construction. The project will have taken a year by the time the tapestry is re-hung on June 5th 2007.

Reinstatement of the terracotta statues...

Blenheim Palace restoration and conservation projects this year included the reinstatement of one of the most prominent features of the Palace. At the beginning of February 2007, six beautiful statues were replaced on the north front facade of Britain’s Greatest Palace following essential restoration. Severe deterioration in the internal structure meant that the six Terracotta statues had to be removed for essential maintenance in 1997 and the façade has remained bare since that time.

The six statues, part of the original Vanbrugh design, represent Roman allegorical figures and are of great historical and architectural importance. Grinling Gibbons sculpted many of the stone adornments on the façade during the building of the Palace from 1705 to 1712. Early images from the 18th century clearly show statues on the parapets on either side of the north portico. In the last quarter of the 18th century a number of statues were removed. In the early part of the 20th century, six terracotta figures were put up by 9th Duke of Marlborough as part of the restoration of the Great Court to Vanbrugh’s original design.

The statues are slightly larger than life size and weight one and a half tonnes each. Each statue has been carefully dismantled, conserved and then reassembled from over 200 pieces in some cases.

Due to the delicate nature of the stone and the painstaking restoration, the originals will not be replaced on the façade, but into alcoves on either side of the Great Court where they will be better protected from the elements and where they will be more visible for visitors.

Cast stone replicas, formed in moulds taken from the originals, will be erected onto the parapet to ensure that the original Vanbrugh design is faithfully recreated.  The cost of the restoration of the figures has been covered by The Blenheim Foundation with the assistance of a grant from English Heritage. The Blenheim Foundation was established by the 11th Duke in 1985, with the principle objective of restoring and preserving Blenheim Palace and Park for public benefit. Specific funds for this project were raised by the Foundation during the Battle of Blenheim Tercentenary year in 2004.

The restoration of the terracotta statues represents just a small part of the restoration and conservation work that takes place at Blenheim Palace every year.  Projects over the last two years have included the completion of the comprehensive re-wiring of the entire Palace as well as the ongoing external re-decoration programme.