At his dining table, he gathered those who could assist his campaign against German re-armament and the British government's response of appeasement; in his study, he composed speeches and wrote books; in his garden, he built walls, constructed lakes — both with his own hands — and painted.

A Grade I listed building, for its historical significance rather than its architectural merit, Chartwell has become among the Trust's most popular properties; 232,000 people visited the house in 2016, the fiftieth anniversary of its opening.

[4] Elements of the Tudor house are still visible; the Historic England listing for Chartwell notes that 16th- (or possibly 17th-) century brickwork can be seen in some of the external walls.

[7] The original farmhouse was enlarged and modified during their ownership, including the addition of the stepped gables, a Scottish baronial genuflection to the land of their fathers.

[8] By the time of the sale to Churchill, it was, in the words of Oliver Garnett, author of the 2008 guidebook to the house, an example of "Victorian architecture at its least attractive, a ponderous red-brick country mansion of tile-hung gables and poky oriel windows".

"Churchill went to Chartwell or elsewhere to lengthen the stride of his political work, but not greatly to reduce its quantity; far from shutting himself off, he persuaded as many as possible of his colleagues and henchmen to visit him, to receive his ever-generous hospitality.

[34] The historian Graham Stewart, in his study of Tory Party politics, Burying Caesar, described it as "a sort of Jacobite court of St Germain".

[35][e] A stream of friends, colleagues, disgruntled civil servants, concerned military officers and foreign envoys came to the house to provide information to support Churchill's struggle against appeasement.

Hankey subsequently wrote, "I do not usually make a note of private conversations but some points arose which gave an indication of the line which Mr Churchill is likely to take in forthcoming debates (on munitions and supply) in Parliament".

[40] A week later, Reginald Leeper, a senior Foreign Office official and confidant of Robert Vansittart, visited Churchill to convey their views on the need to use the League of Nations to counter German aggression.

[g][43] Their sharing of data on German rearmament was at some risk to their careers; the military historian Richard Holmes is clear that Morton's actions breached the Official Secrets Act.

[i] He withdrew the sale after the industrialist Henry Strakosch agreed to take over his share portfolio, which had been hit heavily by losses on Wall Street, for three years and pay off significant associated debts.

[n][59] The Churchills instead spent their weekends at Ditchley House, in Oxfordshire, until security improvements were completed at the Prime Minister's official country residence, Chequers, in Buckinghamshire.

[63] Summoned to London by an urgent plea from Lord Gort for permission to retreat to Dunkirk, Churchill broadcast the first of his wartime speeches to the nation; "Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour...for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation..."[64] He returned again on 20 June 1941, after the failure of Operation Battleaxe to relieve Tobruk, and determined to sack the Middle East commander, General Wavell.

[66] Following VE Day, the Churchills first returned to Chartwell on 18 May 1945, to be greeted by what the horticulturalist and garden historian Stefan Buczacki describes as, "the biggest crowd Westerham had ever seen".

He almost immediately went abroad, while Clementine went back to Chartwell to begin the long process of opening up the house for his return[68]—"it will be lovely when the lake camouflage is gone".

A group of friends, organised by Lord Camrose, raised the sum of £55,000 which was passed to the National Trust allowing it to buy the house from Churchill for £43,800.

[72] For payment of a rent of £350 per annum, plus rates,[72] the Churchills committed to a 50-year lease, allowing them to live at Chartwell until their deaths, at which point the property would revert to the National Trust.

[73] Churchill recorded his gratitude in a letter to Camrose in December 1945, "I feel how inadequate my thanks have been, my dear Bill, who (...) never wavered in your friendship during all these long and tumultuous years".

[p] At the end of a dinner held on 23 June at 10 Downing Street, for the Italian Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi, Churchill collapsed and was barely able either to stand or to speak.

[80] During his recuperation, Churchill took the opportunity to complete work on Triumph and Tragedy, the sixth and final volume of his war memoirs, which he had been forced to set aside when he returned to Downing Street in 1951.

[85] Of his last years at the house, Churchill's daughter, Mary Soames, recalled, "in the two summers that were left to him he would lie in his 'wheelbarrow' chair contemplating the view of the valley he had loved for so long".

They included Clementine's cousin, Sylvia Henley, Violet Bonham Carter, daughter of H. H. Asquith and a lifelong friend, Harold Macmillan and Bernard Montgomery.

[89] The house has been restored and preserved as it looked in the 1920–30s; at the time of the Trust's purchase, Churchill committed to leaving it, "garnished and furnished so as to be of interest to the public".

[106] Tilden was a "Society" architect who had previously worked for Churchill's friend Philip Sassoon at his Kent home, Port Lympne,[107] and had designed Lloyd George's house, Bron-y-de, at Churt.

[114] The library contains some major pieces of Churchilliana, including the 1942 siren suit portrait by Frank O. Salisbury[v][115] and a wall-mounted model of Port Arromanches, depicting the Normandy landing site with its Mulberry harbour on D-Day + 109, the 23rd of September 1944.

[125] In a letter to Randolph written in May 1942, Churchill wrote of a brief visit to Chartwell the previous week, "the goose and the black swan have both fallen victim to the fox.

[131] In the 1920s, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he planned his budgets in the room; in the 1930s, in isolation, he composed his speeches that warned against the rise of Hitler and dictated the books and articles that paid the bills; in 1945, defeated, he retreated here to write his histories; and here, in final retirement, he passed much of his old age.

He dismissed the other side of the house as a, "long, indecisive entrance front close to the road"[137] and the overall composition as of "dull red brick and an odd undecided style".

[154] Churchill had a sentimental attachment to the fauna that lived at Chartwell: his close friend Violet Bonham Carter recalled their conversation in the garden in the early 1950s; "He was bemoaning the fact that the summer had been a bad one for butterflies when suddenly to his delight he saw two Red Admirals alighting on a clump of Buddleia bushes he had planted to attract them.