Autumn Meeting 2025: Blenheim Palace
14th October 2025
This year’s HHAG Autumn Meeting and AGM was at Blenheim Palace and from Sunday night to Tuesday afternoon it was filled with interesting conversations, different takes on sharing collections and helpful advice!
On Monday morning, we arrived at the palace and began with the AGM. This is everyone’s chance to say what they would like from the HHAG in the coming year, and as always there were lots of interesting discussions and suggestions for future training. After the AGM we were given a talk on the history of Blenheim and the Dukes of Marlborough by Peter Gill, who has been a palace guide for over 20 years.
This was followed by lunch and a chance to go up to the roof and see the restoration work up close as well as the views across the park land.
We then split into groups for guided tours of the palace and gardens (we were very lucky with the weather!) and a chance to see a selection of material from the archives with Alexa Frost, Blenheim Palace archivist. We ended the day with a visit to the shop and a break to get ready for the evening.
We then reconvened for a formal drinks reception in the Great Hall and dinner in the Orangery which gave us the opportunity to see the Palace as the sun was setting and after it had closed to the public.
The next day we headed into Oxford itself to visit the Weston Library, home to the Bodleian Library’s special collections. We once again split into groups with one group starting with a talk from Nick Millea and his colleague on the map team and a chance to view some incredibly interesting maps ranging from 1970s soviet maps of the UK to one of the earliest maps of Great Britain. The map team also presented us with a mystery they hoped we might be able to help solve, a damaged and difficult to read estate map with no provenance. On the map was an image of an unknown Jacobean house somewhere around Derbyshire or Cheshire (the fields were measured in Derbyshire acres). Nobody recognised it instantly, but many people went away with ideas of places to search, so a clue could be on the way!
While one group was with the maps the other half of the group were able to explore the Weston Library’s exhibitions. One on the treasures of the Bodleian and the other author John le Carré. After both groups had seen the maps and the exhibitions we went for a final lunch at the Kings Arms before saying goodbye for another year. Next autumn we will be heading to Chatsworth, and we hope to see you there but in the meantime lots of training topics and Spring meetings were suggested to tide us over.
Thank you to everyone at Blenheim and the Weston Library for making us all feel so welcome, especially to our tour guides, Alexa Frost and Heather Carter. The committee are still in need of a training officer and a sector representative it is not too late to apply!
