Where is checkers

It is run and managed by an independent trust and is maintained by an endowment administered by the trustees. The Prime Minister will spend time at the Buckinghamshire mansion while he recovers from a seven-night spell in hospital with coronavirus.

He has since been reunited with his pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds as he takes some time to recuperate. The Chequers estate has been the site of many historical moments, including playing host to Sir Winston Churchill. More recently, the estate was used by former Prime Minister Theresa May as the location for a crunch Cabinet meeting to agree her new Brexit proposals.

In the following days, senior ministers — including then Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson- resigned after disagreeing with the plans. Log In. Contact us Sign up for newsletters. He did so after realising that the politicians coming to prominence post-World War I were not from the landed classes of yesterday, and that they would therefore be unlikely to have country estates from which to entertain foreign dignitaries or to relax in themselves. As he said in the Chequers Estate Act , 'It is not possible to foresee or foretell from what classes or conditions of life the future wielders of power in this country will be drawn.

Some may be as in the past men of wealth and famous descent; some may belong to the world of trade and business; others may spring from the ranks of the manual toilers. To none of these in the midst of their strenuous and responsible labours could the spirit and anodyne of Chequers do anything but good.

Its intention was to encourage the country's leader to get out of London for two days a week to enjoy, 'the high and pure air of the Chiltern hills and woods'. The thinking was that the respite from life in the city would allow politicians to think more clearly, as well as be healthier. The name "Ostiarius" meant an usher of the Court of the Exchequer and scacchiera means a chess board in Italian.

Elias Ostiarius' coat of arms included the chequer board of the Exchequer, so it is possible the estate is named after his arms and position at court. The house passed through generations of the Scaccario family until it passed into the D'Awtrey family, whose name was eventually anglicised to Hawtrey.

A different explanation of the name is that the house is named after the chequer trees Sorbus torminalis that grow in its grounds. There is a reference to this in the book Elizabeth: Apprenticeship by David Starkey, which describes the early life of Elizabeth I.