Blenheim Palace (Oxon)

Birthplace and ancestral home of Sir Winston Churchill (who was brought up fox hunting and shooting pheasants) and the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, Blenheim is one of England’s largest houses and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987: as the Blenheim website puts it, “We are proud to share this status with unique and diverse World Heritage Sites, such as the wilds of East Africa’s Serengeti, the Pyramids of Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Baroque cathedrals of Latin America.” That may well be the case but Blenheim echoes down the ages with the relentless slaughter of ‘gamebirds’ by the uber-privileged: as long ago as 1957, puff pieces were written extolling the fact that “Almost every weekend during the English hunting season, Blenheim Palace,,,provides a spectacular backdrop for the world’s most aristocratic pheasant shoot. The Duke and Duchess of Marlborough, Blenheim’s master and mistress, are among England’s most enthusiastic guns.” Even today the Blenheim website devotes a page to its gamekeepers, saying absurdly that “Between them, the gamekeepers of Britain care for more countryside than all the national parks and nature reserves together” whilst also pointing out that in fact “their principal role is to rear and release game birds such as pheasants, grouse and partridges on the land they manage ahead of the winter shoots.” Gamekeepers: killing wildlife so that other people can come and kill even more wildlife. Only a historic house steeped in the blood of countless birds could even suggest otherwise…