Chartwell

In my life I have been three times to Chartwell, the Kent home of Winston Churchill. It is about a 30-minute drive from my house. Churchill had bought the house in 1922 for £5,000, much to the disapproval of his wife Clementine who thought it needed a lot of money throwing at it to do it up.  It had eventually been taken on by the National Trust in 1946 and opened to the public. My first visit  was about 40 years ago, when I went with Greg and my parents.  The second time was a few years ago when I went with some friends. The third time was a couple of weeks ago on Kay's birthday. She and her husband Darcy had been having visits to a few places linked with Churchill. They had visited the Cabinet War Rooms in London, then Bletchley Park and now wanted to round it off with visiting Chartwell.

It was a hot sweltering Sunday when we went and the Kent countryside was scorched. The gardens at Chartwell are beautiful with walled gardens and sweeping lawns which were also suffering from the heat. We arrived at midday and went straight into the house. It was an original Tudor house with extensions added on by Clementine. 

The rooms were huge and tastefully decorated, although the kitchen still retained the style of the 1930s and 1940s.  

There is a separate building called The Studio where Churchill painted his masterpieces, no doubt to help him relax from the stress of running a country at war.

The grounds are amazing - sweeping lawns, a small lake, walled gardens full of native cottage garden flowers and roses of every description. Near the studio is a tall pendant lime tree which gave off a very strong perfume from several metres away. 

Suffice to say there were butterflies and bees in their hundreds. 

The views across the wider Kent countryside could be seen inside and outside the house and were very calming.

All in all a good day was had by all, polished off by a celebratory meal in our local posh Italian restaurant.