On the Isle of Wight, the baroque ruins of Appuldurcrombe House, bombed during World War 2, are famous for their ghosts. Over on the mainland, Blenheim Palace has gone down in history for more orthodox reasons: a gift from Queen Anne to the Duke of Marlborough in the 18th century, this building, which is imbued with history, is the birthplace of Sir Winston Churchill. In the medieval colleges of Oxford, students cultivate the practice of an age-old sport, the ancestor of tennis, while Waddesdon Manor, built 150 years ago by the Rothschild family in the neo-Renaissance style inspired by the Loire chateaux, is today home to species of endangered birds. Burghley House was built in the 16th century by Elisabeth I's éminence grise and symbolises the golden age of Great Britain with its English park and its three hundred-year-old trees.