Chartwell is a large country house situated in Western Kent - a county in South Eastern England. The house is built in a valley but high enough to have magnificent views over the Kent countryside, as you can see in the photo tour. It is reported that this view was the main factor in persuading Winston and Clementine Churchill to buy the property.

In the hillside above the house is a very generous spring. This has been historically known as the Well and is the origin of the second part of the property's name.

The water from the spring has been both a joy and a curse to the property. In earlier times it was the cause of severe damp in the house as it was when Churchill bought it. In fact, the wet rot was the reason why he and Clemintine decided to demolish the existing house and build a new one - At great expense along with a great deal of worry and caustic arguments with the architect.. The upside is that Winston had dams constructed to create the lakes which he so loved. You can see these in the exterior tour.

The house contains many of the possesions of Winston and Clemantine Churchill and the National Trust have made great efforts to rearrange furniture etc to be as things were when the couple and their children lived there in the 1930s

Our photo tour seeks to show you those things so that, even though you may not be able to visit yourself, you will get a feeling of what the home was like then and is like now.

There are quite a lot of Winston's paintings hanging in the house and our photo tour shows some of those, but certainly not all.

As he was such a titan amongst his peers, Winston was awarded many great offices of state, including the Order of the Garter. Many of his various uniforms are on display. Sadly and despite my best efforts, because they are behind glass that reflects lights, I couldn't successfully  photograph them all.

The Wikipedia page for the property is here.