Chequers, Official country residence in Ellesborough, GB

Chequers is a red brick manor house with multiple chimneys and large windows built in the Tudor style in Buckinghamshire. The building extends over several wings and is surrounded by landscaped gardens and wooded grounds that include rolling hills.

The estate changed from a private manor house to the official residence of the Prime Minister through an act of Parliament in 1917. The owner Arthur Lee transferred it to the nation as a retreat for heads of government who lacked their own country estates.

Heads of government host foreign leaders here and use the property as a retreat for confidential discussions away from London. The residence also serves as a setting for informal meetings where official work continues in rural seclusion.

The house and its collection are not open to the public; the estate lies in a shallow valley near the northern scarp of the Chilterns, 8 km south of Aylesbury. Coombe Hill, two-thirds of a mile northeast, was part of the estate until the 1920s, when it passed to the National Trust. The approach road was camouflaged during the Second World War.

During the early Second World War, security at Chequers was judged inadequate, so Churchill stayed at Ditchley in Oxfordshire until late 1942, when the approach road had been camouflaged from the air. The house keeps the Chequers Ring, one of the few surviving pieces of jewellery worn by Elizabeth I, and a diary of Horatio Nelson.