Historic drought reveals historic garden: Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire

While this summer’s drought conditions have had a dramatic effect on many aspects of our environment, one upside of the recent hot and dry conditions has been the discovery of long-forgotten or completely unknown archaeological sites. This was the case at Blenheim Palace, the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, where the ghostly outline of a 300-year-old formal garden reappeared, picked out in detailed parch marks. Created in 1705 by royal gardener Henry Wise, the space’s layout was revealed in intricate detail. While the formal, ornamental garden – or parterre – was known from a surviving 1719 plan of the palace (below), the present parch marks are allowing the Blenheim team, as we