Ghostly outline of long-lost garden at Winston Churchill’s birthplace revealed in aerial photos
Sweltering heat in the United Kingdom has revealed the remains of a long-lost 18th-century garden at a major tourist attraction.
Aerial photos show the outline of the 300-year-old formal garden at Blenheim Palace, an estate about eight miles northwest of Oxford, England, news agency SWNS reported.
Blenheim Palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site built between 1705 and 1722, is famously the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill, as well as the ancestral home of the Dukes of Marlborough.
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The outline was revealed during the latest heat wave this summer after prolonged dry weather created parch marks, or dry patches in the grass, across the grounds.
A spokesperson from Blenheim Palace told Fox News Digital the marks will be visible "until cooler temperatures arrive and sufficient rain falls to green up the shallow-rooted grass."
"There isn't currently any rain in the forecast for the next few weeks, so it will be visible for a while yet," the representative added.
The patches, officials say, reveal the outline of the original garden, giving a glimpse of what it looked like 300 years ago.
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It was originally created in 1705 by royal gardener Henry Wise and was once protected by a high stone wall with bastions.
The garden was dismantled in 1760s, SWNS said, when Blenheim Palace's gardener Lancelot "Capability" Brown redesigned the palace grounds.
The technical term for the garden is a "parterre," from the French term par terre, meaning "on the ground."
Pictures show that the parterre consisted of symmetrical flower beds and paths.
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In a statement, Blenheim Palace head gardener Andy Mills said the parch marks "allow us to trace the intricate design and scale of the original parterre."
"The excessively dry weather has given us a fascinating bird's-eye view into Blenheim’s past," said Mills, as SWNS noted.
Mills added, "It’s a brilliant reminder of the formal gardens that came before and the layers of history that continue to shape the palace’s landscape."
The palace is popular among tourists for its opulent State Rooms and extensive gardens, as well as the room where Churchill was born.
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Blenheim Palace welcomed 980,678 visitors in 2025, according to visitor data compiled by Historic Houses.
Fox News Digital reached out to Blenheim Palace for further comment.
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The discovery follows other recent historical finds shedding light on life in 18th-century Britain.
Last summer, archaeologists unveiled the remarkably well-preserved wreck of the British warship The Northumberland, which sank off the coast of Kent, England in 1703.
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Earlier this year, construction workers in England unearthed a 300-year-old cannon during routine work in the city of Kingston upon Hull.
