Visitors from around the world can now enjoy personalised tours of Blenheim Palace with ‘Archie – your interactive guide’, an app now available in English, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, German, Finnish, Mandarin, and Japanese.
The free to download app, ‘Archie’ was named in honour of the Palace’s former administrator and first Chief Guide, Archie Illingworth, who worked there from 1950 to 1972, and retired after the death of the 10th Duke.
The new multimedia platform has been created through Culturati, a Horizon Europe RIA project, for which Britain’s Greatest Palace is the UK pilot site.
‘Archie – your interactive guide’ allows visitors to choose exactly what they would like to see and hear, and allows them to delve into over 300 years’ worth of stories, many of which have never been told before.
Some of the stories include:
- Learn how the Long Library was used as a convalescence hospital during World War I, for soldiers recovering from a variety of ailments and injuries, from gunshot and shrapnel wounds, to shock, pneumonia, and dyspepsia.
- Hear how the grounds of Blenheim Palace were used during World War II to test the guns on Spitfire fighter aircraft.
- Imagine what it was like as Archie Illingworth shares his own memories of welcoming the House of Dior to Blenheim in 1954, for the first of two fundraising fashion shows organised by the 10th Duchess in aid of the Red Cross.
Today it houses one of the most important and extensive collections in Europe, which includes portraits, furniture, sculptures and tapestries that can be explored throughout the Palace State Rooms.
