Chartwell

We had planned on visiting Windsor, but a state visit (or rehearsal for a state visit; we're not sure) changed our plans, and, on another beautiful fall day, we drove east and south to Kent, and Chartwell, the home of Winston Churchill. With my interest in 20th century history, WWII, literature, and so on, it was an important visit for me. I can think of only a few authors of whom I have read more than Churchill (Samuel Eliot Morison; Douglas Southall Freeman...). Churchill wrote some 51 books, supported himself most of his life as a journalist and author, and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953. He was elected to Parliament in the early 1900s, had 3 or 4 distinct political careers, and became PM when he was 65.  The house is largely Clemmie's work, I think, and it is a wonderful, real place, not quite a mansion, but beautiful and radiating comfort and grace both inside and out. The exhibits are very good, indeed, although, in fairness, they might include just a bit of stuff on the negative side of Churchill. (I have been amused that none of the Churchill shrine bookstores we have seen have carried Charmley's Churchill and the End of Empire.  I can still quote the NY Times August, 1944, assessment, that he was "a 19th century man fighting a twentieth century war for 18th century purposes." But still a great man, perhaps as great as they get.)

Chartwell, from the garden below

The pool and pond, among many water features leading the eyes to the view 
down the valley to the weald

The fish pond, where Churchill sat and fed his koi

In the larger garden, the Golden Walk, which the children planted with 50 
varieties of yellow rose, on the occasion of the Churchills' 50th anniversary

Part of the wall around the lower garden; from reading Churchill, I had imagined 
something, oh, chest high, and enclosing perhaps 1,000 square feet; rather, it is 
8 feet high and encloses probably 2 acres of vegetable garden, rose garden, 
cutting garden, and so on

He built the wall, "by his own hand," in the years 1925-32, 
when he was in the political wilderness

The studio; Churchill took up painting when he was 41, during the first world 
war; he was quite a serious painter, producing some 500 works in his long 
life-time; anonymously, he won several awards and prizes; the house and 
studio contain scores of his paintings

The inner studio and the unfinished painting