The architect-turned-architectural photographer, David Valinsky, has been posting the photographs he has taken for my book on Instagram. He did an amazing job, taking a vast number of photographs at speed last October and as I went through the final copy-editing last week, I realised, once again, how much they enhance the book, giving a sense of the vastness of Blenheim, as well as its details. The designer, Mark Thomson, has used many of them as double-page spreads which help to illuminate the long process of Blenheim’s design.

This was one of the photographs he posted today, showing the beautiful colour of the stone which made such an impression on Bob Venturi when he went to visit Blenheim on his first day in Europe in July 1948 (he docked in Liverpool on 9 July 1948 and then must have travelled to London, visiting Oxford and Blenheim the following day):-