Churchill’s Citadel
When Winston Churchill saw a house on a hill called Chartwell, it was love at first sight, but not with the house itself. It was the landscape, first seen by him on a beautiful summer’s day in 1921, that captivated him. Its situation on a hillside, at the top of a valley, afforded views of gardens in the foreground, and then rolling hills and woodland beyond, looking out across more than 40 miles of English countryside on a clear day. The timing wasn’t right however, and it was a year later before the stars aligned. In September 1922, on the very day that his wife Clementine gave birth to their fifth child, Churchill made an offer on the house. The timing was already dramatic but it was made even more so by the fact that he knew Clementine, who had once also liked the house, had since soured on the idea. It was therefore a particularly bold move of his, when he made an offer on the house without telling her. Their youngest daughter later said that it was “the only issue over which Clementine felt Winston had acted with less than candour towards her” over the course of their long marriage.
Though the house may have seemed good value at £5000, it needed extensive and costly renovations just to make it inhabitable, owing to severe water ingress, dry rot and a plague of other issues. It was almost two years later, and another £30,000 spent, before they could call Chartwell their home. It quickly became Churchill’s much-loved country home during the years he held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer, but by the end of the decade their fortunes, both literally and figuratively, plummeted. An election in May 1929 saw Churchill retain his parliamentary seat, but the Conservative government he had served were defeated, and he found himself on the opposition benches. Misfortune turned to disaster for the family, whose finances were already precarious to say the least, when Churchill’s speculation on the stock market saw them lose the equivalent in today’s money to close to £1m in an instant, as a result of the Wall Street Crash.
With more time on his hands, and an urgent need to replenish the family coffers, Churchill threw himself into writing, which had always been his primary source of income. By the summer of 1932 he was immersed in researching a biography of his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, whose military victories included the Battle of Blenheim in southern Germany in 1704. Churchill’s research took him to the site of the battle, after which he spent several days with family and friends in Munich. A near-miss of astonishing proportions took place during his stay. He had been due to have dinner with a large group one evening, and included among the intended attendees was Adolf Hitler. Though not yet Chancellor of Germany, Hitler was at the helm of the largest party in the Reichstag, with rapidly growing political power, and it was perhaps for this reason that he deemed the meeting not worthy of his time, and so stood Churchill and his party up.
Though the pair never met, Churchill had witnessed enough during his time in Germany to ring alarm bells. His first speech in the House of Commons, warning of what he called a ‘war mentality’ in the country, was in November 1932. From that point on, Churchill’s country home at Chartwell metamorphosed from rural idyll to campaign headquarters and so his seven-year long campaign to convince his countrymen to ready for war began.
The visitors to Chartwell during these vital years included political and military figures, diplomats, journalists, academics and many more. They were chosen by Churchill, as those who could provide information, intelligence and testimonials to support his campaign. Dinner table diplomacy became the vehicle by which he could glean the insights he needed, with animated discussions accompanied by French cuisine and glasses of Pol Roger champagne. Then, through the night in his study, he wove these reports into speeches, articles, broadcasts, letters and any other means by which he could warn of the Nazi menace.
It is these meetings, behind the grand oak doors of Chartwell, which form the chapters of Churchill’s Citadel. They sit in the narrative alongside family life, the goings-on of their army of staff, and the day to day running of the house and estate. Together, these threads form a rich tapestry, depicting life at a house-on-a-hill that changed the course of history. It was the meetings that took place there, during these vital years, that put Churchill in the position of knowledge and authority on the subject of Nazi Germany to be returned to government in September 1939, and in due course, to be appointed Prime Minister the following year. It is therefore quite possible that, without Chartwell, the world may well have been denied the era-defining leadership, that took Britain from the brink of defeat to victory.
Katherine Carter is a historian, curator and author of
