By Douglas J. Hall

Kent, that largely maritime county in the extreme southeast of England, was Winston Churchill’s spiritual home for almost half his life. When he became resident in “The Garden of England” in 1924, if not before, he undoubtedly discovered that amongst the natives there is an ancient and obscure rivalry between “Kentish Men” and “Men of Kent.” The story’s origins are uncertain and its perpetration equally ambiguous. Very approximately, Kentish Men are from the largely land-locked west of the county, whilst Men of Kent are from the east which is bounded on three sides by the sea.

Churchill’s purchase of Chartwell may, he might have thought, have given him some claim to being a Kentish Man, and some years later he was able to delight in considering himself uniquely an affiliate of both fraternities when his appointment as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports brought him the right to reside in Walmer Castle. In fact, native-born Kentish Men and Men of Kent guard their birthright with consummate jealousy, and “foreigners” immigrating merely to take up residence are not normally or readily admitted to either clan. However, Churchill came to be regarded with equal approbation throughout his adopted county.

Born in Oxfordshire, Churchill had been itinerant for more than half his life, but when he did decide to put down roots for the second time in 1922 he was delighted to discover Chartwell, virtually on Kent’s western boundary. The tranquillity of the place captivated him. Looking out over the Weald of Kent, many years later, he was to say, “I bought Chartwell for that view.” The bonus was that the view was also within 25 miles of the House of Commons. Clementine had written to him, “I long for a country home but I would like it to be a rest and joy Bunny not a fresh preoccupation.” In the event, for the next 15 years or so, Chartwell became the biggest preoccupation imaginable, as Winston spent upwards of £30,000 (£140,000/$200,000 in today’s money) in addition to the original purchase price of £5,000, on an extensive programme of rebuilding and improvements.

He was heard to remark, “A day away from Chartwell is a day wasted,” although in fact by the time the various enhancements had been completed to his satisfaction circumstances dictated that Chartwell was to become something of a pied-á-terre whilst he found it necessary to spend more of his time in London – successively at Morpeth Mansions, 10 Downing Street and 28 Hyde Park Gate‹or at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country residence. Churchill’s preference was always strongly for Chartwell but, as Anthony Montague Browne related in his book Long Sunset (Cassell: 1995), the permutations of domestic arrangements became something of a trial for Clementine. He recalled one conversation at Downing Street during the early 1950s:

Churchill’s threat was received in dumfounded silence on all sides but it was not carried out. His gastronomic priorities clearly prevailed!

In 1945 Churchill feared that his income was no longer sufficient to allow him to maintain Chartwell and a consortium of wealthy friends offered to purchase the property on behalf of the National Trust, on condition that he could continue to live there, at a nominal rent of £350 a year, for the rest of his life. There is some dispute over the purchase price. Sir Martin Gilbert in the Official Biography (Volume VIII, page 304) quotes £43,800 but in Churchill: A Life, page 873, he cites £50,000. Most other sources quote the higher figure. That would have been a fair return on Churchill’s total expenditure on the property over more than 20 years, and by the time he died in 1965 its value would have appreciated to over £100,000. In today’s money that is in excess of £1 million but, it is stressed, this is merely a “bricks and acres” value and its historical associations and contents are priceless.

The original Cinque Ports were Dover, Hastings, Hythe, Romney and Sandwich. Until the reign of Henry VII (1485-1509) these ports had enjoyed certain privileges in return for supplying the King with a navy. Henry VII nationalized the privateers, creating the first truly Royal Navy, and withdrew the privileges, but the ancient title of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports remained as an honorary and purely ceremonial office within the gift of the King. It had become the custom for the King to award the office in recognition of distinguished service to the State and previous incumbents had included Palmerston, Pitt and Wellington.

Once awarded, the office was for life and in 1941, on the death of Lord Willingdon – a former Governor-General of Canada and Viceroy of India -George VI offered the Lord Wardenship to Churchill. In fact, as Jock Colville revealed in The Fringes of Power (Hodder & Stoughton: 1985), Churchill’s name had been suggested to the King’s private secretary by Anthony Bevir, who looked after all patronage matters at No. 10 Downing Street. Churchill never knew this but it didn’t matter since the King was delighted to accept the recommendation.

The Prime Minister himself was much attracted by the historic splendour of the appointment, although somewhat daunted by the cost of rates, taxes and upkeep of Walmer Castle, and within a month travelled to the coast to inspect his new bailiwick. Although his appointment as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports took effect from September 1941, Churchill deemed that he was too busy prosecuting the war to attend the colourful installation ceremony at Dover Castle. Of course it would have been quite unthinkable to mount such an event at a location within range of the German cross channel artillery, and subject furthermore to frequent visits by the Luftwaffe. In the event the traditional ceremony was held in August 1946. (The resident Scotland Yard bodyguard, Ronald Golding, recalls the day, and other happenings at Chartwell at this time, in Finest Hour 33 and 34.)

Churchill delighted in wearing the splendid Lord Warden’s uniform on any ceremonial occasion (see page 11), whether or not the occasion had any remote connection with the office. He wore it, for example, for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953, reckoning that as Prime Minister he should not be outshone by anyone at the ceremony other than the Queen herself. There are at least three portraits of Churchill wearing his Lord Warden’s uniform: by John Leigh-Pemberton (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich), Bernard Hailstone (Dover Town Hall) and Dennis Ramsey (Deal Town Hall).

When Churchill reopened Chartwell after World War II he hoisted large and colourful flags, bearing the heraldic devices of the office of Lord Warden, from the Chartwell flagstaff (right) whenever he was in residence. But because of the proximity of the flagstaff to a chimney stack, the flags very soon suffered undue damage and flag flying was soon restricted to special occasions. He was elected an Honorary Life Member of the Association of Men of Kent and Kentish Men in 1949. The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, a 15-inch-gauge light passenger railway running for 13 1/2 miles along the southern coast of Kent, connects two of the Cinque Ports and has appropriately commemorated Churchill’s Lord Wardenship. One of its locomotives, a one-third scale replica of a North American Pacific 4-6-2, to this day proudly carries the nameplate “Winston Churchill.”

Robin Fedden, the former Deputy Director-General of the National Trust, was the author of Churchill at Chartwell (Oxford, Pergamon: 1969), the definitive account of Winston Churchill’s acquisition, transformation and occupation of the house and garden he so dearly loved. One sentence in Mr Fedden’s book has always struck me as rather singular. He begins his chapter entitled “The Garden” with the words: “The charm of the garden relates to its simplicity.”

Certainly the garden is charming – one of the most charming I know – but to describe that wonderfully sophisticated and expensively contrived panorama of earthworks, waterworks, rockeries, brickwork, trees, shrubberies, pastures, formal terraces, lawns, beds and borders as “simple” has always struck me as being something of a terminological inexactitude or, at least, a greatly restrained understatement. Speaking in Commons, on 27 July 1950, Churchill said, “It is always, I think, true to say that one of the main foundations of the British sense of humour is understatement,” so perhaps Mr. Fedden was having his little joke. Fortunately, the rest of his chapter accurately describes one of the greatest glories of Chartwell.

Mary Soames wrote in Clementine Churchill (Cassell: 1979), that soon after the end of the war the garden at Chartwell, which during the 1920s and 1930s had been an earthly paradise to Winston but had afforded Clementine only worry and fatigue, became an increasing source of pleasure and satisfaction to her mother. Although in the past Clementine had often tried to dissuade Winston from undertaking large-scale works, now the boot was on the other foot as she conceived and carried out several major improvements whilst Winston made the demurring noises.

She had always found the gardens too spread out and exhausting, and among her major improvements were the removal of the old dilapidated greenhouses and potting sheds to provide a wide sunny terrace and the conversion of the tennis court to a croquet lawn. The Golden Rose Garden was created in 1958 as a Golden Wedding present to their parents from the Churchill children. Clementine became immensely proud of “her” garden and loved to preside over the several charity open days held each summer for various good causes.

To Robin Fedden’s 30-year-old and Lady Soames’s 20-year-old accounts of the Chartwell garden we can now add a relevant hands-on perspective:

When Chartwell first opened in 1966, it was Lady Churchill’s wish to have fresh flowers in the house, as there had been in his lifetime. These simple arrangements of cottage-garden flowers have been a feature ever since.

In March, when the house opens, daffodils forced in the greenhouse add variety to those growing outside, and are especially necessary after a cold winter. Freesias grown in pots in the greenhouse follow on, with tulips and De Caen anemones from the garden. These are grown in beds which were left for cut flowers when the kitchen garden was landscaped with trees and shrubs. Here, later in the year, Dutch and Spanish iris, gladioli, Canterbury Bells, Sweet Williams and permanent herbaceous plants like aquilegia and Alstroemerie “Ligru Hybrids” will flower.

Brompton Stocks are a long-lasting cut flower. The seed is sown in the greenhouse in late July, then the seedlings transplanted into a cold frame in September where they grow throughout the winter and flower in May. Cosmea “Sensation Mixed” is an excellent annual for picking as it flowers all summer. The plants do need supporting, however, as they can reach four feet in height. Asters, larkspurs and lavateras add variety in season.

A good crop of sweet peas is obtained by sowing the seeds in pots in November and placing them in a cold frame where they over-winter. The seedlings have their tips removed in late January to encourage young basal shoots, which are reduced to one per plant in April, when they are planted in the garden. The plants are trained up bamboo canes tied to supporting wires; all side-shoots and tendrils are removed to get long straight flower stalks. In a good season flowers will be produced from June to September and the plants will be laid in August. This entails releasing them from their canes, laying them along the ground and tying them to another cane about three feet away.

Dahlias can usually be relied on to flower until the end of October, as we usually escape early frosts due to the garden being on a slope. The varieties “Corydon” (peach), “Susannah York” (pink), “Glorie van Heemstede” (yellow), and “Wiegenlid” (white) have been grown here for years, the tubers being stored in the basement of the house in winter. Care is taken to bring them into growth in frames before planting out as only “Glorie van Heemstede” seems to be commercially available. Chrysanthemums from the greenhouse fill the house in November. The only flowers not grown specifically for cutting are roses, but with about 1000 bushes in the garden there are plenty to pick without them being missed.

Besides cut flowers, pot plants are grown for the house. These must be flowering and include hyacinths in spring, followed by Regal pelargoniums, fuchsias and Charm chrysanthemums for the autumn. We have a large collection of amaryllis (hippeastrums) which originated when Sir Winston was given one by the late Princess Marina; he was so taken with it that he said there must always be amaryllis at Chartwell. Some annuals make good pot plants: we find salpiglossis, browallias and white petunias most useful; the latter if cut back after the first flush will flower again. Lady Churchill loved white flowers so we always try to have a plant of that colour in her bedroom.