CHEQUERS COURT is popularly familiar as the country seat of the Prime Ministers of Britain. It is not, however, a public or Government-owned building—rather, it is managed by a trust set up for the purpose by Ruth and Arthur Lee, later Viscount Lee of Fareham, in 1917. The couple first leased —and later bought—this Elizabethan house as a second home in 1909 and restored it with the help of the doyen of Edwardian architects, Sir Reginald Blomfield. When the Lees first undertook the transformation of the house in their late thirties, they had no idea of where it would lead them.
To rediscover how the Edwardian renovation of Chequers Court unraveled, it is necessary to turn to Ruth’s unpublished diaries. These are preserved in the house and run in a continuous sequence from 1906 to 1946. Each volume is bound in red leather and locked by a single clasp. Within them is to be found an unusually detailed account of how the Lees fell in love with Chequers and then went about its restoration.
As we shall discover next week, they also reveal how the decision to gift it to the nation was catalyzed by a plane crash in 1912 and then came to an unexpectedly rapid fruition on New Year’s Day, 1921.
Denne historien er fra May 06, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra May 06, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
