Shortly after the work at Boughton and Drayton was finished, Sir John Vanbrugh was laying his “heavy loads” on the earth in various parts of the country. Heavy they may be, but no one can deny them vigour and force. Vanbrugh, like his contemporaries, troubled himself little about the niceties of planning from the point of view of daily life, nor did he even provide rooms of a size and dignity proportionate to the vast palaces he designed. But no architect of the time succeeded better in pleasing the passer-by with his stately buildings. Blenheim, the gift of a grateful nation to her most distinguished hero, was rivalled by Castle Howard (Fig. 164), the private enterprise of a wealthy nobleman. Eastbury in Dorset was nearly as large, and from the outset must have been something of a white elephant to its owners. At the end of the eighteenth century its possessor is said to have offered an annuity of £200 to any one who would live there and keep it in repair. Finding nobody willing to undertake the responsibility, he finally pulled down all but one wing. Seaton Delaval, in Northumberland, though not so large, was still on an extravagant scale. The central block, a fine and massive piece of building, had nevertheless no great amount of accommodation, and it has never been rebuilt since it was burnt down in 1752. Both the outlying wings remain; the kitchen was in one, many yards distant from the dining-room; and some of the bedrooms in this block have to this day no direct communication with the outer air. The other wing contained, as usual, the stables; but so vast are its spaces that the standings within it that are used have had to be enclosed in order to keep them warm. [Illustration: 164. Castle Howard, Yorkshire (1714).]