Ditchley was a medieval village recorded between the 14th and 17th centuries. No trace of the
deserted medieval village is now visible. Ditchley once provided lodging and access to the royal hunting ground of
Wychwood Forest. In the
Elizabethan era, the estate was purchased by the Lee family.
Sir Henry Lee (1533–1611) was a noted courtier. He commissioned the
Ditchley Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, which shows her standing on a map of the
British Isles, surveying her dominions; one foot rests near Ditchley in Oxfordshire, to commemorate her visit to Sir Henry Lee there. He was later noted for declining to receive his monarch a second time, because of the enormous expense.
King James VI and I and
Anne of Denmark visited on 15 September 1603 with the French ambassador and a duke, whom
Arbella Stuart called the "Dutchkin." Subsequent occupants include Sir Henry Lee, 1st Bt., of Quarendon, later of Ditchley (died by 1632), Sir Francis Henry Lee, 2nd Bt., of Quarendon (1616–1639), his widow
Anne, Countess of Rochester,
The 2nd Earl of Rochester who was born at the house, Sir Henry Lee, 3rd Bt. (1633–1659),
Sir Francis Lee, 4th Baronet of Quarendon,
Charlotte, Countess of Lichfield, illegitimate daughter of
Charles II, and
Robert Lee, 4th Earl of Lichfield. In 1763 architect
Stiff Leadbetter designed and built an Ionic rotunda in the grounds for the Earl. The estate then became the property of the
Viscounts Dillon.
Tree family In 1933, after the death of
Harold Dillon, 17th Viscount Dillon, an
Anglo-Irish peer, Ditchley was bought by Anglo-American
Ronald Tree and his wife, the celebrated
decorator Nancy Lancaster. It was the decoration of Ditchley which earned Nancy the reputation of having "the finest taste of almost anyone in the world." She worked on it with
Sibyl Colefax (Mrs Bethell of Elden Ltd having died in 1932) and the French decorator
Stéphane Boudin of the Paris firm Jansen. In November 1933, Ronald was elected MP for
Harborough, Leicestershire. Tree and his wife Nancy were among those who saw the
Nazi threat, and had invited
Winston Churchill and his wife to dinner on numerous occasions from 1937.
Churchill On the outbreak of war, the security forces were concerned by the visibility of both Churchill's country house,
Chartwell – its high site, and its position south of London, making it an easy returning-home target for German aircraft – and the Prime Minister's official retreat of
Chequers, which had an entrance road which was clearly visible from the sky when illuminated by moonlight. Churchill had use of the
Paddock bunker in
Neasden, but only used it on one occasion for a cabinet meeting before returning to his
Cabinet War Room bunker in
Whitehall. Ditchley, with its heavy foliage and lack of a visible access road, was an ideal site. Churchill asked Tree for "accommodation at Ditchley for certain weekends, when the moon is high" and he readily consented. Churchill first went to Ditchley in lieu of Chequers on 9 November 1940, accompanied by his wife
Clementine and daughter Mary. During visits to Ditchley, Churchill negotiated part of the
Lend-Lease agreement with President Roosevelt's special advisor Harry Hopkins, and had exiled Czechoslovak President
Edvard Beneš as a guest. By late 1942, security at Chequers had been improved, including covering the road with turf. The last weekend Churchill attended Ditchley as his official residence was Tree's birthday on 26 September 1942, and his final visit was for lunch in 1943. In June 1994, US Secretary of State
Warren Christopher and
British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd unveiled a bronze bust of Churchill, which stands in a prominent position to highlight the role that Ditchley Park played during a critical phase of the
Second World War.
Recent decades Shortly after the end of the war, Tree divorced Nancy and married
Marietta Peabody Fitzgerald, an American woman he had met while working for the
Ministry of Information. Marietta moved into Ditchley, but found English country life not to her liking. Noticing his wife's upset, and short of money, Tree sold Ditchley to
Sir David Wills, descendant of the tobacco importing family,
W. D. & H. O. Wills of Bristol; and moved with his family and butler Collins to New York. In 1958 Wills set up a trust, the
Ditchley Foundation, which aims to promote international (especially Anglo-American) relations, and which still owns the house today. Ditchley was used to film scenes from the first episode of the final series of
Downton Abbey. In 2002, it became the home of the Butler Valet School. ==Architecture and listing designations==