Churchill spent much of his leisure time at Chartwell, the house and grounds he bought in 1922 set in the rolling countryside of Kent. When he wasn’t bricklaying, building tree houses for the children or feeding his menagerie of animals, he spent much of his time painting, particularly in his ‘wilderness years’. His studio at Chartwell is today much as it was when he was alive and many of his paintings can be seen on its walls. He generally preferred light and colour and, when the weather wouldn’t comply and he couldn’t paint out of doors, he often resorted to still-life studies of fruit, bottles and glassware (hence ‘Bottlescape’, his painting of a range of drinks and glasses, both full and empty.) His nephew Peregrine has said that Churchill, on receiving a large bottle of brandy for Christmas, sent his children round the house looking for other bottles to put alongside it, for a still life. Peregrine told Richard M. Langworth, the editor of , that Churchill said: ‘Fetch me associate and fraternal bottles to form a bodyguard to this majestic container’ ().

Chartwell, both the house and its land, were to become Churchill’s passions and a haven for him and his family in the years to come. At great expense, he engaged architects, designers and builders to rebuild and expand the house and its accompanying buildings, even undertaking some of the work himself. Although Clementine never liked the house as much as Churchill and never got over the fact that he’d been less than honest in his dealings with her over the purchase of the house, she put all her efforts into ensuring it was a comfortable family home for the children.

Chartwell, the much-loved home in Kent that he bought in 1922 and which he enjoyed renovating and remodelling This is where he lived with his wife Clementine and his children, and...

Finest Hour 174, Autumn 2016 Page 45 Leslie Hossack, Charting Churchill: An Architectural Biography of Sir Winston Churchill, 2016, CAD $19649 Available exclusively online at wwwchartingchurchillcom Review by Stefan Buczacki Professor Stefan Buczacki is...

By Ashley Jackson Ashley Jackson is Professor of Imperial and Military History at King’s College London and a Visiting Fellow, Kellogg College Oxford This article is the unabridged...

Introduced by Richard M Langworth...

The Library at Chartwell, with its thousands of leather-bound volumes copyright: NTPL/Andreas von Einsiedel...

copyright: Chartwell Andreas von Einsiedel...

This painting, ‘Winter Sunshine, Chartwell’, is one of the most impressionistic of his paintings and the one that he submitted to an amateur art exhibition in London in 1925 and with...