Chequers or Chequers Court ( ) 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, north-west of Central London. Coombe Hill, which is northeast, was once mostly part of the estate.
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).
History
The current house was built by another William Hawtrey around 1565, possibly by reconstructing an earlier building. A reception room in the house bears his name today. Soon after its construction, Hawtrey acted as a custodian at Chequers for Lady Mary Grey, younger sister of Lady Jane Grey and great-granddaughter of King Henry VII. Lady Mary had married without the monarch's consent, and as punishment was banished from court by Queen Elizabeth I and kept confined. Lady Mary remained at Chequers for two years. The room where she slept from 1565 to 1567 remains in its original condition.
Through descent in the female line and marriages, the house passed through several families: the Wooleys, the Crokes and the Thurbanes. In 1715 the owner of the house married John Russell, a grandson of Oliver Cromwell. The house is known for this connection to the Cromwells, and still contains a large collection of Cromwell memorabilia.
In the 19th century the Russells (by now the Greenhill-Russell family) employed Henry Rhodes to make alterations to the house in the Gothic style. The Tudor panelling and windows were ripped out, and battlements with pinnacles installed. Towards the end of the 19th century, the house passed through marriage to the Astley family. Between 1892 and 1901 Bertram Astley restored the house to its Elizabethan origins, with advice from Reginald Blomfield. The restoration and design work was completed by the architect John Birch.
20th century
thumb|left|Chequers viewed from the rear in 2006