Chequers
Chequers
Chequers or Chequers Court ( CHEK-ərz) is the country house of the prime minister of the United Kingdom. A 16th-century manor house, it lies near the village of Ellesborough, halfway between the towns of Princes Risborough and Wendover in Buckinghamshire, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, 40 miles (64 km) north-west of Central London. Coombe Hill, which is two-thirds of a mile (1.1 km) northeast, was once mostly part of the estate.
Chequers
Chequers has been the country home of the serving prime minister since 1921, when it was given to the nation by Viscount Lee of Fareham via a Deed of Settlement, given full effect in the Chequers Estate Act 1917. The house is listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England.
Origin of the name
Chequers Court takes its name from the Checker family, who owned the estate in the 12th and 13th centuries. Elias del Checker, the first recorded member of the family, was an usher at the King's Exchequer, hence his name: del Checker (Latinised as de Scaccario) means "of the Exchequer" in Anglo-Norman. Around 1254 Elias's grandson, Ralf, died without a male heir, causing the estate to pass into the hands of his son-in-law, William de Hauterive (or Hawtrey).
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