Chevening

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 man-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 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.

The house was for 250 years the principal seat of the Earls Stanhope, a cadet (and ultimately the final) branch of the Earls of Chesterfield, from 1717 to 1967. The James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope was a general under Marlborough and a Whig politician who served as chief minister to King George I until his death in 1721. Through marriage he was the uncle of William Pitt the Elder. The Philip Stanhope, 2nd Earl Stanhope was tutored by the 4th Earl of Chesterfield and became a distinguished patron of science during the Enlightenment. The Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope, both first cousin and brother-in-law to William Pitt the Younger, was a prolific inventor whose major achievements in such diverse fields as printing, building a mechanical calculator, steam navigation, optics, musical notation and fire-proofing in buildings were overshadowed at the time and subsequently by his reputation, as the self-styled “Citizen Stanhope”, for eccentricity and political radicalism. The Philip Henry Stanhope, 4th Earl Stanhope was a gifted amateur landscape gardener and architect, half-brother to Lady Hester Stanhope, and the legal guardian of Kaspar Hauser. The Philip Stanhope, 5th Earl Stanhope was the driving force behind the foundation of the National Portrait Gallery and the Historical Documents Commission: writing as Viscount Mahon he was a distinguished 19th-century historian and established the Stanhope Essay Prize at Oxford. The Arthur Stanhope, 6th Earl Stanhope was a Conservative MP before inheriting and served as First Ecclesiastical Estates Commissioner from 1878 to 1903. Both his brothers made their careers in politics. The Rt Hon Edward Stanhope (Conservative) was a reforming Secretary of State for War (1887-1892) while the 1st Lord Weardale (Liberal) was president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (1912-22) and of the Save the Children Fund. The James Stanhope, 7th Earl Stanhope (also 13th Earl of Chesterfield) was a Conservative politician who held office almost continuously from 1924 to 1940, serving in Cabinet posts from 1936 under Baldwin and Chamberlain. He founded the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.

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 less than five Fellows of the Royal Society. He therefore drafted what became the Chevening Estate Act 1959 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.

Current Use

Under the terms of the Chevening Act[3] 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.

The present Nominated Person is the Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. Under special arrangements with the Board of Trustees the house is also available to the Secretary of State for International Trade and the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union. When circumstances permit the house may be used for meetings or conferences, usually by other Government departments, through arrangement with the Trustees.

Alleged literary connection

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 her Uncle, the Revd John Austen, became Rector of Chevening in 1813, the novel having been published in that January.

Chevening Scolarship Programme

Chevening is the name of the UK government’s international awards scheme, founded in 1983 to develop global leaders. While the programme takes its name from the house, the Chevening Secretariat administers the awards on behalf of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. The Secretariat is based at Woburn House in London and is part of the Association of Commonwealth Universities.