Crockham Hill Jul/Aug 2025 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 33
Churchill and Crockham Hill
Kev Reynolds and Michael Court
In September 1922 Winston Churchill bought Chartwell and its 80-acre
estate for £5,000, having been attracted by its stunning outlook across the
Weald. 8I bought Chartwell for that view9, he said some years afterwards.
The house was a gloomy Victorianised building of Elizabethan origins, and
it took the inspiration of architect Philip Tilden 3 and £20,000 worth of
work 3 to modernise, enlarge and completely transform it. In the 1920s
£20,000 was a considerable sum of money, but Churchill believed that
income should always be expanded to meet expenditure! By the time
Tilden had finished, the house had five reception rooms, 19
bedroom/dressing rooms, eight bathrooms and nine servants to look after
it.
With the aid of his police sergeant, chauffeur, two gardeners, six men and
his children, Churchill built rockeries, fish ponds, croquet lawns, a heated
swimming pool, two lakes, two cottages and kitchen garden walls. 8I never
had a dull or idle moment from morning to midnight,9 he wrote, 8and with
my happy family around me dwelt in peace.9 On another occasion he
famously said: 8A Day away from Chartwell is a day wasted.9
Winston turned Chartwell into a veritable writing factory, for he relied
upon his skill as an author for most of his income. With typists, secretaries,
and at least six researchers scouring 60,000 volumes in the library, he
produced more words than Dickens and Shakespeare combined, and at
one time was said to be the highest paid journalist in Britain. He produced
two biographies, a novel, three volumes of memoirs and several histories,
and in 1953 received the Nobel Prize for Literature 3 8for his mastery of
historical and biographical description as well as for brilliant oratory in
defending human values.9
By 1946 Churchill9s income had failed to keep pace with expenditure, but
Lord Camrose organised a consortium of anonymous wealthy friends to
buy the Chartwell estate for the National Trust, with the provision that for
a nominal rent Sir Winston and Lady Churchill could continue to live there
until they both died. When his finances improved, Churchill bought
Bardogs at Toys Hill, and the nearby Chartwell Farm, into which his
youngest daughter, Mary moved in 1947 when she married Christopher
Soames.
32
