Formerly the principal seat of the earls Stanhope, the house and estate are owned and maintained at the expense of the trust of the Chevening Estate, under the Chevening Estate Act 1959[3] (amended 1987), to serve as a furnished country residence for a person nominated by the prime minister, so qualified by being a member of the Cabinet or a descendant of King George VI. The nominee pays for their own private living expenses when in residence but government departments arrange and effect official business at the estate.[4] Chevening House is not an official residence, but has been traditionally used by the Foreign Secretary.[5]
History
There has been a house on the site since at least 1199 and the estate originally formed part of the archiepiscopal manor of Otford. The present 15-bedroomed house is a three-storey, symmetrical red brick structure in the early English Palladian style, attributed to Inigo Jones, set at the foot of the North Downs in extensive parkland. A garden to the south encircles a human-made lake. The house was extended from 1717 by the addition of symmetrical wings by Thomas Fort, a master carpenter and royal clerk of works who had worked under Christopher Wren at Hampton Court. Much remodelled by the 3rd Earl Stanhope in the late 18th-century, the house was extensively restored in the 1970s by Donald Insall Associates for the Board of Trustees of the Chevening Estate.
An Act to confirm and give effect to a vesting deed and trust instrument relating to the Chevening Estate and other property, and for purposes connected therewith.
An Act to establish an incorporated board of trustees of the trusts contained in the trust instrument set out in the Schedule to the Chevening Estate Act 1959; to confer functions on, and to transfer property, rights and liabilities to, the board; to amend the trust instrument; and for purposes connected therewith.
Having no children of his own and his only brother having been killed in the Great War, the last Earl Stanhope wished to create at Chevening a lasting monument to a family that had provided for two and a half centuries politicians across the political spectrum and no fewer than five fellows of the Royal Society. He therefore drafted what became the Chevening Estate Act 1959[6] to ensure that the estate would not be broken up after his death, but would instead retain a significant role as a private house in public life. The ownership of the property would pass to a board of trustees, who would maintain it as a furnished country residence for a suitably qualified nominated person chosen by the prime minister. The nominated person would have the right to occupy the house in a private capacity and would pay for their private living expenses. The board of trustees would maintain the house and estate by means of their stewardship of the estate, with no grant from the Government. The Act was passed with cross-party support and, as amended by the Chevening Estate Act 1987, governs the estate to this day. The first beneficiary of the Act was the 7th Earl, who died in 1967, following which the board of trustees launched a major programme of restoration of the house, gardens and parklands funded partly by his endowment and partly through their own management of the estate.[7]
In 1974 Charles, Prince of Wales, accepted the prospect of living on the estate. According to his biographer, Jonathan Dimbleby (for whom Prince Charles arranged access to unpublished royal diaries and family correspondence), at that time he was contemplating an eventual marriage to Hon. Amanda Knatchbull, granddaughter of his great-uncle the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma: "[I]n 1974, following his correspondence with Mountbatten on the subject, the Prince had tentatively raised the question of marriage to Amanda with her mother (and his godmother), Lady Brabourne. She was sympathetic, but counselled delaying mention of the matter to her daughter, who had yet to celebrate her seventeenth birthday."[8] Amanda's paternal great-aunt had been Lady Eileen Browne, daughter of the 6th Marquess of Sligo, whose childless marriage to the last Earl Stanhope led to Chevening's being designated by law as a potential home for a member of Britain's royal family. If Amanda were to become Princess of Wales by marriage, the Prince's acceptance of Chevening would make some familial sense. But this was not to be, although the Prince did visit the house several times. In a note of 24 April 1978 to his private secretary, Sir David Checketts, Prince Charles observed, "I know there are advantages — particularly financial ones — in the Chevening set up, but I regret to say I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that they are the only advantages."[9] In June 1980, Prince Charles wrote to the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, to renounce residency at Chevening (without actually having resided there). Weeks later, he purchased Highgrove in Gloucestershire. By then, according to Dimbleby, Amanda Knatchbull, several of whose close family members had been recently murdered, had declined the Prince's proposal of marriage,[10] and he would soon begin courtship of Lady Diana Spencer.[11]
Current use
Under the terms of the Chevening Act, the prime minister has the responsibility of nominating a person to occupy the house privately as a furnished country residence. This person can be the prime minister, a minister who is a member of the Cabinet, a lineal descendant of King George VI or the spouse, widow or widower of such a descendant. The Canadian high commissioner, the American ambassador and the National Trust all have remainder interests in Chevening in the unlikely event that none of the others requires the house.
Princess Sophie Bonaparte lives in a cottage on the grounds under grace and favour, The princess is also a member of the board of trustees.
Literary connections
The poet Robert Selby was a longstanding resident of the Chevening area. His poetry collection The Coming-Down Time (Shoestring Press, 2020)[12] includes a sequence entitled 'Chevening', partially set in the grounds of Chevening House and in St Botolph's church opposite.
It has sometimes been suggested that Chevening served Jane Austen as a model for Rosings Park in her novel Pride and Prejudice, but the only established fact that links the novelist with Chevening is that the Revd John Austen, her second cousin and grandson of the solicitor Francis Austen, who lived in the Red House, Sevenoaks, became Rector of Chevening in 1813, the novel having been published in that January.[13] However, it was written from October 1796 to August 1797. John Halperin also relates that Francis Austen, an uncle of Jane Austen's father, was solicitor to the owners of Chevening during the latter third of the 18th-century; that Francis Austen owned property in the area, and that Jane Austen visited him and relatives in Kent several times between 1792 and 1796.[13]