Winston Churchill at Chartwell

This is the first in a series of three themed posts about

Sir Winston Churchill.

Winston Churchill purchased Chartwell near Westerham, Kent in south-east England in 1922 at a time when he was in the political wilderness and it was his primary home for forty years - almost the rest of his life. He did not live there during the war years because of it's location only twenty miles from the centre of London and it's proximity to the channel coast.

He employed the successful English 'society' architect Phliip Tilden to carry out major improvements and enlargements. The pair eventually fell out and a long-running legal dispute ensued. I think Churchill must have been a difficult client - he was a man of strong opinions knew exactly what he wanted for the property. I have seen some of the written instructions he gave Tilden and they are very specific and rather subjective.

At the time of purchase he claimed that it was the view of the Weald of Kent - a sprawling collection of rural towns and pretty villages set in pristine countryside, that he fell in love with.

The house became possibly one of the most important country houses in Europe and now has Grade I listed status. This is often awarded for historical rather than architectural reasons - definitely in this case. From there Churchill planned his campaign of opposition to Neville Chamberlain's policy of appeasement to Adolf Hitler. He had long been wary of Hitler's intentions.

Chartwell is not an especially pretty building being in the vernacular style; that is, local materials and design were used and not necessarily built by conventionally-trained architects. I think this gives the building character. Churchill became obsessed by the property and constructed ponds gardens, brick-walls by his own hand. A heated swimming pool and two cottages were built in the grounds. He also painted many scenes of the gardens.

The garden wall on Mapleton road, the less attractive entrance to the property, is based on a garden wall in Quebec House, General Woolf's home in nearby Westerham town in the English county of Kent.

After the war Churchill was in critical financial circumstances and some of his friends arranged a deal with the National Trust who paid him an enormous sum for the house which he agreed to leave to the trust in return for allowing him and Lady Churchill to live there for the rest of their lives. Lady Churchill relinquished the property to the trust as soon as Winston became to ill to live there, in 1962. He died in 1965.

The property has prospered in the hands of the trust and receives over 500,000 visitors a year.