The Irish standard., 1895-10-19
the bridge. This greatly pleased the first
duchess, who felt the heat Of summer

the bridge. This greatly pleased the first
duchess, who felt the heat Of summer
and loved her stone. house & .5S 81
Now the lowest 81 the rooms upon one
end Of the bridge is submerged with wa
ter as the stream has grown in the last
hundred years, but the upper ones are
as beautiful and as cool as ever. One.cf
the bridge rooms has been furnished like
a boudoir with a couch, chairs, rugs and
curtains. There are rough frescoes upon
the walls, and, going into it one would
not suspect that one was under the road
way of great stone bridge. The room
is prettier than many of the darkened
ones of the castle, and when it is flooded
with the sun from the south, it is cool,
romantic and fascinating.
Last spring Miss Vanderbilt greatly
enjoyed spending an hour in the morn
ing here, when she and her mother were
Marlborough's guests, and extra furnish
ings were carried there for her AS a
great concession to modern convenience,
Lily. the former duchess, had telephone
connection made with the house from the
bridge rooms, so there could be commun-
ication if anything was needed. Often
tea or lunch was served there, and from
the windows hung vines almost to the
water below.
A true love spot is the conservatory.
And, as everything about B1enheim is
peculiar, the conservatory does not es-
cape the adjective. 1t is as unlike
modern conservatory as possible. This
room was planned by. Sarah Jen-
nings, the first Duchess, and was to be
"the most pleasant sitting-room in the
house and not a magazine for parcel Of
foolish plants
The conservatory of Blenheim today is
the family sitting-room. 1t is reached
from above by a winding stair set with
palms, and it is as full of hooks as the
angle of a castle can be. In the hooks
and on shelves stand the plants. Below
are easy chairs, manyhof them modern
now. In one of the hooks IS a great Eng
lish counting chair, which was a birthday
present from Queen Anne to the first
Duke, and was openly presented by her
majesty of England as 'large enough for
two persons" It was, for those days,
of very rare design, and so well was it
upholstered that today 1t is as strong,
if not as bright, as new.
There are $50 front rooms in Blenhein,
and of these 40 are guests chambers.
They are kept ready for use all the time,
the linen hanging over the footposts in
old-fashioned style, ready to be spread,
and the windows thrown open. Within
an hours preparations party Of forty
could be accommodated here.
There is one side of the castle called the
new wing. 1t is new only in having
modern invention, in it,. Electric lights
are all over the castle. But in the new
wing there are billiard and pool tables and
a very nice Enclosed court used for tennis.
There is shooting range and an archery
alley, with good bowling alley also.
The Duchess of Marlborough is woman
of many friends and she must make her
house parties entertaining.
There are twenty staircases in Blen-
helm leading from the main floor to the
second. And so complicated is the ar
rangement of the rooms that people can
visit here for weeks without even meeting
each other except at dinner. It is de-
clared fact that the father Of the present
Duke dwelt at Blenheim several months
with his wife after her divorce from him.
neither seeing the other nor even looking
out over the same section of country; and
former Duke, famed for hospitality,
was frequently imposed upon by scape-
graces of good family, who would put up
at Blenheim for weeks at a time, dining
privately, using the horses in the stable,
and occupying with a, valet, a good suite
of rooms, and all without the masters
knowledge, so vast is B]enheim. 80 +
To rule over such a large home goes
Consuello, a daughter of the Vanderbilts.
And fortunate it is that there has been
before her an American Duchess to make
the home pretty and homelilze in spots
and modern throughout, or even its his
toric and cherished love spots could not
drive away the longing for home.