Blenheim – an 18th century palace nestled among resplendent gardens, shimmering lakes, and stately trees- is England’s Versailles. With 2500 acres of verdant fields and elegant rose gardens, it’s no wonder the English gentry flock here for picnics by the river and a little afternoon delight in the property’s arboretum. Tourists come to see where Winston Churchill spent his childhood summers in the company of philandering dukes (his own father died of syphallus) and pretty, young duchesses.

Blenheim was a place of scandal and intrigue; Rumor has it that back in the 1100s King Henry II hid his mistress at the palace and built her a ”pleasure pool” by the lake to keep her occupied in his absence. She spent many a lonesome night dipping her feet in before the jealous queen arrived and stabbed her. The “pleasure pool” cannot be found on a map of the grounds, but its masturbating statues (and the creepers who ogle them) are not easily looked over.

King Henry II sounds like a regular 12-century Hugh Hefner, or maybe Hugh was so inspired by the “pleasure pool” that he built his famous grottos at the Playboy Mansion in its honor. But in Hugh’s version the mistress and the wife would be playing in the pool together.

- Lizzie Crocker

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