BLENHEIM Palace is to open a new £1.3m tourist attraction to reveal the palace's 'Untold History'.

The palace said it would be offering "a groundbreaking new visitor experience" from May, using state-of-the-art technology to bring the history of Blenheim alive.

The new attraction will mean that the upstairs rooms in the heart of Vanbrugh's Baroque masterpiece will be open to the public for the first time in the Palace's 300-year history.

And it will involve a major modernisation of the way the palace presents itself to visitors, following the lead of other historic visitor attractions such as Warwick Castle.

The new attraction will comprise of a combination of theatre sets and information rooms. Innovative film-projection technology will be used to to tell the story of the dukes down the centuries.

While guided tours of the state rooms will continue to be a highlight of a visit to Blenheim, chief executive John Hoy said the Blenheim Palace: The Untold Story attraction would bring something totally different.

Dramatic events and scandals are revealed by Grace Ridley, a housemaid of the first Duchess, who acts as narrator.

She first appears as a ghostly figure in the midst of the celebrations to mark the laying of the foundation stone in 1705, before beckoning visitors to follow her through three centuries.