Sweeping lawns, geopolitics and guns
Britain’s grace-and-favour houses offer an odd mix of the political and the personal
It was in Admiralty House that the famous phrase was first spoken. On May 13th 1940 Winston Churchill called his cabinet there. “I have nothing to offer,” he said, “but blood, toil, tears and sweat.” Earlier, worrying about the prospect of war, Neville Chamberlain walked in the bluebell wood at Chequers, the prime minister’s country house in Buckinghamshire. In the Falklands war Margaret Thatcher decided to sink the Belgrano, an Argentine warship, while sitting in a chair in Chequers: she would later point it out, proudly, to guests.
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This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Brideshead, borrowed”
Britain November 16th 2024
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From the November 16th 2024 edition
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