Qualla: Chequers https://qualla.com/chequers en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:14 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/q/chequers-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Chequers https://qualla.com/chequers Chequers: Introduction https://qualla.com/chequers/ Photo credit David Hillas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The name Chequers comes from a 13th-century civil servant who would barely recognize the country house his family loaned its name to. Elias del Checker - sometimes rendered in Latin as Elias de Scaccario - was an usher at the King's Exchequer in the reign of Henry III. His job involved the chequered cloth used for medieval accounting; his surname declared what he did for a living. The family held a small estate in Buckinghamshire that became known by their occupation. Seven centuries later, the house that grew up on that estate became the country residence of every British prime minister since 1921. Lloyd George was the first to use it. Every prime minister since has slept in the same rooms.

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Image: David Hillas | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/q/chequers-wp/gcpq-chequers-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Chequers: The Tudor House https://qualla.com/chequers/ Photo credit Colin Smith, CC BY-SA 2.0. William Hawtrey built the current house around 1565, probably reconstructing an earlier building on the same site. The Hawtreys had married into the Checker family in the 1250s, when Elias's grandson Ralf died without a male heir. The estate passed through them and then, through ...

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Image: Colin Smith | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/q/chequers-wp/gcpq-chequers-the-tudor-house.mp3 0:06 2 full Chequers: The Cromwell Inheritance https://qualla.com/chequers/ Photo credit Chris Heaton, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1715, the woman who owned Chequers married John Russell, a grandson of Oliver Cromwell. The connection was significant. Cromwell's reputation had been destroyed at the Restoration in 1660 - his body was dug up and posthumously executed - and most of his personal possessions ha...

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Image: Chris Heaton | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/q/chequers-wp/gcpq-chequers-the-cromwell-inheritance.mp3 0:06 3 full Chequers: The Astley Restoration https://qualla.com/chequers/ Photo credit GameKeeper, CC BY-SA 3.0. The house passed through marriage to the Astley family at the end of the 19th century. Bertram Astley spent the years between 1892 and 1901 painstakingly undoing the Gothic Revival modifications and restoring Chequers to its Elizabethan original. He consulted Reginald Blomfield, ...

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]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/q/chequers-wp/gcpq-chequers-the-astley-restoration.mp3 0:06 4 full Chequers: Lord Lee's Gift https://qualla.com/chequers/ Photo credit Cnbrb, CC0. Sir Arthur Lee, later Viscount Lee of Fareham, was a Conservative politician and Anglophile American sympathizer. He and his wealthy American wife Ruth Moore bought Chequers in 1909. By 1917, they had made a remarkable decision: they would give the house to the nation. Lord Lee h...

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]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/q/chequers-wp/gcpq-chequers-lord-lees-gift.mp3 0:06 5 full Chequers: Churchill, Brexit, and the Coronavirus Sickbed https://qualla.com/chequers/ Photo credit Peter Jemmett, CC BY-SA 2.0. Chequers has hosted nearly every major diplomatic guest of every prime minister for over a century. Churchill spent weekends here during the Second World War, working from the Long Gallery and walking the grounds when he could not sleep. Eisenhower stayed. So did Roosevelt's emis...

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Image: Peter Jemmett | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/p/q/chequers-wp/gcpq-chequers-churchill-brexit-and-the-coronavirus-sickbed.mp3 0:06 6 full