Introduction
10 Downing Street is the most famous address in the world. It has been the scene of the most important decisions ever taken in Britain, and witnesses history every day. Likewise, the Prime Minister’s country retreat, Chequers has been used for summits, meetings, and crucial decision making. But, for two centuries, Prime Ministers had no access to Chequers, and often chose to live outside of Number 10 even when in London. This article looks at a few places that have witnessed Prime Ministerial history.
The Country House

The Prime Ministers of the 18th and 19th Century were much more likely to be aristocratic than modern ones. Many sat in the House of Lords and through inheritance or marriage had considerable estates and a large country house (or even several). Most had a property in London for political business, and then a house in the countryside that sat on their own land. Moreover, until the mid-20th Century, the Parliamentary session often ended in August, and then did not recommence until the New Year, meaning that the Prime Minister would often have long periods when they did not need to be in London.
The first Prime Ministerial stately home, even before Downing Street, was Houghton Hall in Norfolk. The first Prime Minister, Sir Robert Walpole (1721-42), had the house constructed on his Norfolk estate. It is one of the country’s greatest examples of Palladian architecture, and was designed by some of the era’s most prominent architects, including Thomas Ripley and William Kent.
Walpole’s great art collection, one of the finest in Europe, lined the walls, with paintings on display by William Hogarth, Johann Rottenhammer, and Sir Anthony Van Dyck. His son, Horace Walpole, wrote that one of Walpole’s agents had bought a fine painting in Rome, but Pope Innocent XIII had ‘remanded it back, as being too fine to let go’. However, ‘upon hearing who had bought it’, the Pope relented and allowed it to be shipped to Walpole. Today, much of the collection lives on in the Hermitage in St Petersburg, sold by one of Walpole’s descendants.
But Houghton was not just an art gallery. It formed a crucial part of Walpole’s political operation. Every May and November, it became the venue for his ‘Norfolk Congress’. These were raucous parties for the Whig elite. One guest wrote about how ‘we used to sit down to dinner a snug little party of about thirty odd, up to the chin in beef, venison, geese, turkeys … claret, strong beer and punch.’ He added that ‘In public we drank loyal healths, talked of the times and cultivated popularity; in private we drew plans and cultivated the country.’
Many of the aristocratic Prime Ministers of the 18th and 19th Centuries possessed a stately home. Chatsworth in Derbyshire, one of Britain’s most famous stately homes, was owned by the Duke of Devonshire (1756-57). Nearby, Wentworth Woodhouse in South Yorkshire, which is considered the largest private home in the UK, was owned by Lord Rockingham (1765-66, 1782).
Of course, the stately home was also a more practical symbol of power, particularly before the Reform Act of 1832. The Duke of Newcastle (1754-56, 1757-62) owned many houses, including Clumber Park and Nottingham Castle. These were parts of a vast inheritance from both his father and his uncle, which left him considerable lands, wealth, and direct control over some 20 constituencies, mostly ‘rotten’ and ‘pocket’ boroughs.
A century later, as Benjamin Disraeli (1868, 1874-80) rose up the ranks of the Conservative Party, he purchased Hughenden in Buckinghamshire. As a key figure in a party that represented traditional English values, and a landowning elite, the ownership of such a house showed that Disraeli had a stake in the country, and it gave him considerable status. Though not a natural rural gentleman (he eschewed the traditional pursuits of shooting and hunting) he did enjoy walking in the countryside, and welcomed the respite that Hughenden provided. Today, Hughenden remains dedicated to Disraeli’s memory, and visitors can see the ceremonial robe of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which Disraeli took home with him, much to the chagrin of his successor, William Gladstone (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, 1892-94).
Appropriately, the last great aristocrat to be Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury (1885-86, 1885-92, 1895-1902), was born and died at his great stately home of Hatfield House in Hertfordshire. Hatfield had been constructed during the 1600s, by Robert Cecil, who had been chief minister to King James I.
