Ditchley Park is a country house near Charlbury in Oxfordshire, England. The estate was once the site of a Roman villa. Later it became a royal hunting ground, and then the property of Sir Henry Lee of Ditchley. The 2nd Earl of Lichfield built the present house, designed by James Gibbs, in 1722. In 1933, the house was bought by an MP, Ronald Tree, whose wife Nancy Lancaster redecorated it in partnership with Sibyl Colefax. During the Second World War Winston Churchill used the house as a weekend retreat, due to concerns that his official country house, Chequers and his private country home, Chartwell, were vulnerable to enemy attack. After the war, Tree sold the house and estate to the 7th Earl of Wilton, who then sold it in 1953 to Sir David Wills of the Wills tobacco family. Wills established the Ditchley Foundation for the promotion of international relations and subsequently donated the house to the governing trust.
Ditchley Park
Ditchley, Oxfordshire c. 1818
The house and flanking pavilions.
Ditchley House, side view, 1880
Charlbury is a town and civil parish in the Evenlode valley, about 6 miles (10 km) north of Witney in the West Oxfordshire district of Oxfordshire, England. It is on the edge of Wychwood Forest and the Cotswolds. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 2,830.
St Mary's parish church from the southeast
Top Barn, Walcot
Jacobethan drinking fountain designed by John Kibble and erected in 1897 to commemorate the visit of Queen Victoria.
Charlbury railway station