Blenheim Palace: Great War House

The First World War's impact was vast and far-reaching, and has been examined in great detail already in countless documentaries during its centenary year. Even so, this new documentary turns up a few surprises. It explains how the Great War affected the people of Blenheim Palace, the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough. For centuries it existed as a miniature kingdom, until the conflict tore apart the stately home's family and wreaked havoc on the lives of the people who relied on the estate.
　　Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes takes a decorous stroll around Who Do You Think You Are? Territory as he investigates how the First World War brought about social change at Blenheim Palace. There are, however, no tears from him over the fate of its residents and workforce, despite some poignant stories. “I keep having this sense of people taken from ordinary lives and thrust into this,” he says in the middle of his researches. Rather cleverly, he compares the experiences of two very different Blenheim men - Winston Churchill, “the undisputed star of the family”, and Arthur Hine, the estate’s lowly clerk who became a heroic dispatch rider on the front line.