Visit Winston Churchill's Chartwell by Mouse
Chartwell is the former home of Winston Churchill. It is located 37 miles south of London, near the town of Westerham, Kent.
It
is a beautiful estate, as the photos will show. Churchill and Clementine, his wife, bought it in 1922 and lived in it until
his death in 1965 except for the war years when it was thought to be vulnerable to air attack because it was so close to both London
and France. Today it is owned by The National Trust.
Since 1922 the house has been renovated and added to. The original
structure is a red brick Tudor farm house, and even after the additions it retains the same look and feel. It is not a huge
or opulent mansion. Rather it is a home that is designed for comfortable and informal living. And The National Trust has
done its best to make it look as it did when the Churchills lived in it.
The grounds are extremely beautiful. The
house sits on a low hill overlooking much of the property and beyond. There are gardens everywhere you look, artfully planted
and well kept.
Photos are not allowed inside the house, so we can offer only photos of the outside of the house and of
the gardens and the views. But the Chartwell web site offers a photo gallery, and many of the photos there are of the inside,
including Churchill's desk, the dining room, and his painting studio. Many photos, paintings and framed letters adorn the
walls. One of these that impressed Ron a great deal was a letter he wrote to General Montgomery when the latter was
in command of British forces in Africa. As Ron recalls, it was a very terse note that said something like, "You
are ordered immediately to get rid of all German forces under General Rommel." Now that certainly is not the exact language
in the note but it is the sense Ron took away from it. Boy oh boy. That is what can be called an order!
