The Churchill Society
London.

There is a forgotten -

. . . . . . .Cornsbill.

(The National Trust). CHARTWELL HOUSE. KENT. CHURCHILL'S HOME (during his political wilderness years). and "the years the locusts have eaten"

Chalk Hill Blue. . .

Open to the Public. 1st April to the 29th October 2000. Wednesday to Sundays (and Bank Holiday Mondays). 11 am to 5 pm. - last admissions 4.15 pm. Admission to the house (only) is by timed ticket for all visitors. Restaurant. Chartwell is open six days per week, (Tuesday to Sunday), in July and August. Chartwell Information Mrs Carole Kenwright The National Trust. Chartwell Westerham Kent TN16 IPS Telephone 01732 868 381.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Chalkhill Blue (Male) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Gatekeeper

A little known passion of Sir Winston Churchill's was his concern for the diminishing numbers of British butterflies. In 1946 he planned a butterfly garden to increase the numbers of common species around his house at Chartwell, Kent.

 About 1500 chrysalids were hatched each year in a summer house which Churchill adapted to a butterfly house. He would spend hours waiting for the moment when the butterflies emerged. Once on the wing he set them free.

Churchill loved animals. At different times he had canaries, cats and kittens, and many different dogs. He adored his goldfish and on the lake you will see the Australian peoples' gift to him of black swans. The Australians will ensure they are always there.

Churchill relaxed by painting in oils. He took up painting to quieten his distress at the loss of life caused by the First World War. He only ever thought of it as a hobby - but if you click on the above image it will enlarge and you will see for yourself his extraordinary talent.

__________________________________

I like pigs.
Dogs look up to us.
Cats look down on us.
Pigs treat us as equals.

Winston Churchill.

____________________

	Lady Churchill planted buddleias as a good nectar source in late summer		Small Tortoiseshells,
Chalk Hill Blues		and the butterflies at Chartwell included Peacocks,
.Brimstones,	Commas,	Red Admirals,	Painted Ladies
	Clouded Yellows,		Whites

Fruit of the Kent hedgerow

Oscar Nemon's Sculpture of Clementine and Winston Churchill in the grounds of Chartwell.

Hepatica . . . . .

__________________

 

Pasque

 Churchill's enthusiasm was not without frustrations.

He battled with birds to stop them eating the caterpillars. He found himself at odds with the gardeners who were reluctant to grow large areas of nettles. He had problems with neighbouring farmers who cut wild flowers when they cut their hay.

Rear Admiral.

. . Chaffinch .

Gatekeeper

Harebell
Now, more than 30 years after Churchill's death, few traces of the original butterfly plantings remain, but there are still buddleia, cotton lavender and other nectar-bearing flowers as well as discreetly hidden nettles. Churchill asked that some of the money raised for his eightieth birthday appeal be used to save the wild habitats of butterflies.

 

The music which played as you downloaded this page
is first movement from the four evocative orchestral movements from

		THE CHARTWELL SUITE. 'Spring Dawn'. 'Summer's Day'. 'Autumn Mists'. 'Winter's Night'. from Rutherlyn's Tribute to Churchill and his Comrades - in - Arms. THE CHURCHILL MUSIC. First Performance by Radio Prague and Czeske TV In conjunction with THE CHURCHILL SOCIETY VE DAY 1995 PRAGUE. The Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Conducted Vladimar Valek. The composer lived nearby Chartwell from his birth and until 1974. On the title page of the gift the composer quoted . . .

"You have been so faithful and so loving to us, you have fought so stoutly for us, you have been so hearty in counselling of us that we shall never forget your favour towards us" HOUSE OF COMMONS November 30th 1954

Three years after his death, in 1968, Butterfly Conservation was formed. Now with over 10,000 members it is the largest invertebrate conservation body in the country.

 

These years had other sorrows and anxieties for him.

Churchill with King Edward VIII
just before his Abdication.

______________

The only people Churchill never forgave were those who,
in the words he so often used

"fell beneath the level of events"
___________________

Churchill was a man of many interests - see the extensive Rose Garden walls he built - the lakes and fishponds he designed and laid out and read of his wife's despair at the cost of his never ending and ambitious ideas for improving the house he loved so dearly and which she wished he had never bought!

Visit his painting studio in the orchard - the Marycot - his famous study and library and dining room and read of the multitude of distinguished visitors to the house.

Churchill's Orchard Studio.

__________________

There are wonderful displays of innumerable mementos
and some of the many gifts Churchill received from foreign governments

You will never forget your visit to Chartwell.
_____________

We are all worms, but I do believe I am a Glow Worm!

Winston Churchill.

During all these years Churchill not only wrote many articles and books but spent a huge amount of time building the Rose Garden walls, a pond for his beloved goldfish, organising machines to dig out the lakes, and restoring a garden cottage as his painting studio.

(The author of this page lived in Godstone (a nearby village), and recalls meeting by accident in 1967, Churchill's (by then) elderly handyman whose task was to mix all the cement and ensure everything was to hand. He related how after Churchill had finished bricklaying for the day, he sometimes had to go back and secretly relay some of them lest the wall in time fall!

Trade unionists complained that Churchill was not qualified to build walls, so with great glee Churchill promptly joined the Union and was very proud of the fact for the rest of his life!

______________________

 

Churchill took up flying again but had an accident at nearby Croydon. His wife pleaded with him to give flying up. Thus he never got his pilot's licence.

At Chartwell Churchill wrote many newspaper articles and also a massive biography of his ancestor entitled "Marlborough: His Life and Times". When you read this fascinating book you will realise just how often European history repeats itself, and how the writing of it taught Churchill how to foretell the way so many contemporary political and military situations would turn out.

Here at Chartwell you can see how all the experiences - both the successes and failures that Churchill had encountered during his last 40 years in politics - were (as he himself said) the preparation for his successful wartime leadership and which enabled him to save England in her darkest hour.

But overriding all this work during these years at Chartwell was his deep concern about what was happening in Hitler's Germany.

With a small band of loyal friends at Chartwell, Churchill developed a centre of intelligence superior to the Foreign Office, and therefore knew more about what was happening in Germany, and how weak the British Armed Forces were, than anyone else in Britain.

Repeatedly Churchill's predictions about Germany's intentions to overrun and swallow up her neighbours came true and repeatedly his warnings were ignored - both at home and abroad. Read his famous speech entitled:-

THE LOCUSTS YEARS.
House of Commons.
1936.

The Second World War started on September 3rd 1939 and ended 6 years later on 8th May 1945. No-one knows how many people lost their lives in this war but it was at least 45 to 50 million of whom over 5,700,000 persons were what Hitler described as political and racial "undesirables" and were infamously taken from their homes, separated from their families and children, enslaved in terrible conditions and treated in a manner unimaginable before either dying from starvation or being murdered.

________________

An anxious Churchill

. . . . but now one bond unites us all - to wage war until victory is won, and never to surrender ourselves to servitude and shame, whatever the cost and agony may be. This is one of the most awe-striking periods in the long history of France and Britain. It is also beyond doubt the most sublime. Side by side, unaided, except by their kith and kin in the great Dominions and by the wide Empires which rest beneath their shield, the British and French peoples have advanced to rescue not only Europe, but mankind from the foulest and most soul-destroying tyranny which has ever darkened and stained the pages of history. Behind them - behind us - behind the armies and fleets of Britain and France - gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians - upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall. Winston Churchill. _____________________________

Churchill was 65 years of age when the second World War started - an age when men retire.

The North African Desert War.	The Battle of Britain.
The Blitz. The Blitz and St Paul's Cathedral.	London Bus in Blitz. The Atlantic and Artic Convoys. About England's Greatest Friend. President Roosevelt.
The prisoners of the Japanese.	The Heroic Endurance of Malta.
The terrible war on the Russian Front. A Russian Mother.	How the Yanks went in. Jima. Pacific The US Navy. A sea crash.

I have the feeling that after the second Thirty Years' War, for that is what it is, through which we have just passed, mankind needs and seeks a period of rest. After all, how little it is that the millions of homes in Europe represented here today are asking. What is it that all these wage-earners, skilled artisans, soldiers and tillers of the soil require, deserve, and may be led to demand? Is it not a fair chance to make a home, to reap the fruits of their toil, to cherish their wives, to bring up their children in a decent manner and to dwell in peace and safety, without fear or bullying or monstrous burdens or exploitations, however this may be imposed upon them? That is their heart's desire. That is what we mean to win for them. Winston Churchill. Hague 1946.

Poppy. . .

Just One of Millions.

. . Poppy

I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come, the British and American people will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together in majesty, in justice, and in peace. Winston Churchill.

. . Spring Snowdrops
Some time ago I stated that it was the proud mission of the victor nations to take the Germans by the hand and lead them back into the European family, and I rejoice that some of the most eminent and powerful Frenchmen have spoken in this sense. To rebuild Europe from its ruins and make its light shine forth again upon the world, we must first of all conquer ourselves. It is in this way only that the sublime, with its marvellous transmutations of material things, can be brought into our daily life. Europe requires all that Frenchmen, all that Germans, and all that every one of us can give. I therefore welcome here the German delegation, whom we have invited into our midst. For us the German problem is to restore the economic life of Germany and revive the ancient fame of the German race without thereby exposing their neighbours and ourselves to any rebuilding or reassertion of their military power of which we still bear the scars. United Europe provides the only solution to this two-sided problem and is also a solution which can be implemented without delay.

Chaffinch

The genius springs from every class and from every part of the land. You cannot tell where you will not find a wonder. The hero, the fighter, the poet, the master of science, the organiser, the engineer, the administrator, or the jurist may spring into fame. Equal opportunity for free institution and equal laws. Winston Churchill.

_____________________

Spring Blackthorn.

There is a forgotten - nay almost forbidden word, . . . . a word which means more to me than any other. . . . That word is "ENGLAND" Sir Winston Churchill.

Spring Cherry Blossom A nation that forgets its past has no future. Winston Churchill. ________________

Winston Churchill.

House of Commons
February 11th 1943

Winston Churchill's Medals. It was announced yesterday by Winston Churchill (minor) that he had presented  on loan  his grandfather's medals to the Imperial War Museum for display at the cabinet war rooms. What he failed to reveal, was that in doing so he saves himself the fear of being burgled for them - almost certainly the heavy expense of insuring them - and whether or not he has paid the inheritance tax on them*. Sensible man you say..............until you remember the shameful thing he and the family did when they blackmailed the effete Prime Minister John Major and his Conservative government and the nation to pay him £12,500,000 for the  on loan  Chartwell papers and for which the family still continue to charge outrageous copyright fees. There is nothing to stop him or his children doing the same thing again. Likewise with the  on loan  contents of Chartwell. _______________________________________________ The Times Newspaper London September 7th 1998 (abbreviated) Mr Mark Thomas has accepted a position advising Chancellor Gordon Brown about reforming the tax system to ensure that rich people cannot cheat. Mr Thomas was invited after his television programme revealed that Nicholas Soames (Churchill's grandson and Conservative MP and former Minister) * avoided paying inheritance tax on family heirlooms he had been left, by listing them as available to public inspection when they were not. ____________________ Where are all the many missing majestic jewelled silver and gold boxes, the superb commemorative cut glass and enamelled plaques and mementos and the spectacularly bejewelled solid gold and silver sculptural pieces that were bestowed upon Churchill by foreign Kings and Queens and the huge number of gifts given in his honour by Governments from all over the world including many from Arab Royalty and the Emirates - all of which were originally on display at Chartwell when it first opened and which are now missing? It was Sir Winston's desire that all of these should be permanently on display at Chartwell.  .________________________ The only people Churchill never forgave were those who, in the words he so often used:- "fell beneath the level of events" _______________________

Because of his record Mr W S Churchill's appointment as Chairman of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust
is as astonishing as it is improper and he must resign.

The story of the Churchill family and their friends promotion (in 1988) of the West End Musical with 'Winnie' singing in his bath! After three performances it was taken off. It was reputed to have lost £3 million pounds and was described by a Buckingham Palace courtier as "just done for money, money, money . . . . vulgar vulgar vulgar!"

 The Churchill family to pay back The Lottery Money.

The High Court (London) proceedings. Who owned the Chartwell Papers?

Churchill's Medals.

How safe are the contents of Chartwell?
Copy of correspondence with The National Trust.

Churchill's daughter Mary Soames,

Churchill's grandson Nicholas Soames,

Churchill's grandson Winston Churchill minor.

Important information.

 'Conservative Party sleaze added to the continuing collapse of moral standards in the UK. From 1983 onwards it gathered pace and led to the national uproar caused by the the story of the Churchill family threatening to sell Sir Winston and Lady Churchill's gift to Churchill College of The Chartwell Papers.

Lord Rothschild's letter.

February 13 2000 The Sunday Times Newspaper
London. A copyright article.
Lottery-funded Churchills' charge academics £50 a letter.

The very sad press chronology of Winston S Churchill Jnr.

Professor Charmley writes: Is there no end to the making of money by the family our of Sir Winston?

Commercial advertising. Cashing in on Churchill. Who authorised this crude example?

Criticisms of the book 'Churchill's Private Letters' selected, edited, and published by his daughter Mary Soames.

May 1999. Important information.

THE MAIN INDEX

Search the web site.

Contact the society.