Ditchley

Ditchley is a country house and estate near Charlbury in Oxfordshire.

The estate was once the site of a Roman villa. Later it became a royal hunting ground, and then the property of George Lee, 2nd Earl of Lichfield, who built the present house, designed by James Gibbs, in 1722. In 1933, the house was bought by an MP, Ronald Tree, whose wife Nancy Lancaster redecorated it in partnership with Sibyl Colefax. During the war, they allowed their friend Winston Churchill to use the house as his country retreat, as it was hard to spot from the air. Later, Tree sold Ditchley to Sir David Wills of the tobacco family, who set up the Ditchley Foundation, for the promotion of international relations.