Conservators currently at work restoring paintings in Blenheim Palace said they found the names of 11 people written in the ceiling decades ago, with the oldest dated to 1843.
Blenheim Palace is the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough, and is named after the 1704 Battle of Blenheim, which took place during the War of Spanish Succession. The land was given as a gift for the Duke’s military victory there, and construction started on the house in 1705. It was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987.
The conservation work ongoing now is part of a $16 million restoration of the palace’s roof which began in 2024. It is set to finish next year. As part of the plan, conservators are working to restore several paintings in the Great Hall’s ceiling, including one by Sir James Thornhill from 1716 and and a few by Louis Laguerre.
The graffitied names were found over 60 feet up. It is believed that many of the names are from people who worked on the coving in 1968, as well as a plasterer who dated his name as 1843.
“We were excited to discover these pieces of graffiti. We didn’t have any documentary evidence of previous work to the Great Hall and Saloon and these are a tantalizing clue as to what was done, and when,” Lizzie Woolley, director of Opus Conservation, told the BBC. “It would be brilliant to solve the mystery of who these people were, and what they were doing in the Great Hall.”
The names found are:
- F. R. Rambone, 292 Abingdon Rd, Oxford, 10 February 1931
- G T Higgs 1921 Oxford, who is thought to have varnished windows
- T Riley 2011
- J F Brennan 1968
- J. Henfry 1968
- H J Brennan 1968
- W A Hunt 1968
- W Smith 1888
- T Harwood, plasterer 1843
- E Tuffrey Valentine’s Day 1939
- Rewired LH 1935
