17 Facts About Chartwell

Chartwell is a country house near Westerham, Kent, in South East England.

Chartwell bought the property in September 1922 and lived there until shortly before his death in January 1965.

In 1946, when financial constraints forced Churchill to consider selling Chartwell, it was acquired by the National Trust with funds raised by a consortium of Churchill's friends led by Lord Camrose, on condition that the Churchills retained a life-tenancy.

Chartwell returned the same month with his wife Clementine, who was initially attracted to the property, although her enthusiasm cooled during subsequent visits.

Chartwell paid £5,000, after his first offer of £4,800, made because "the house will have to be very largely rebuilt, and the presence of dry rot is a very serious adverse factor", was rejected.

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Chartwell is to be our home we must endeavour to live there for many years.

Chartwell withdrew the sale after the industrialist Henry Strakosch agreed to take over his share portfolio, which had been hit heavily by losses on Wall Street, for three years and pay off significant associated debts.

At dinner at Chequers, in December 1940, John Colville, Churchill's assistant private secretary recorded his master's post-war plans, "He would retire to Chartwell and write a book on the war, which he had already mapped out in his mind chapter by chapter".

Chartwell remained a haven in times of acute stress—Churchill spent the night there before the fall of France in 1940.

In 1953, Chartwell became Churchill's refuge once more when, again in office as prime minister, he suffered a debilitating stroke.

That evening Colville summoned Churchill's closest friends in the press, Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Camrose and Brendan Bracken who, walking the lawns at Chartwell, agreed to try to ensure a press blackout to prevent any reporting of Churchill's condition.

On 13 October 1964, Churchill's last dinner guests at Chartwell were his former principal private secretary Sir Leslie Rowan and his wife.

Chartwell has become among the National Trust's most popular properties; in 2016, the fiftieth anniversary of its opening, 232,000 people visited the house.

Nicholson, a frequent visitor to Chartwell who gave Churchill painting lessons, drew the study for a finished picture which was intended as a present for the Churchills' Silver Wedding anniversary in 1933 but, disliking the final version, Nicholson destroyed it.

Chartwell wrote many of his pre-war speeches in the study, although the house was less used during the war itself.

Chartwell dismissed the other side of the house as a, "long, indecisive entrance front close to the road" and the overall composition as of "dull red brick and an odd undecided style".

Chartwell had developed an interest in bricklaying when he bought Chartwell and throughout the 1920s and 1930s constructed walls, a summerhouse and some houses on the estate.