<\/p>\n
\n Pints with Xi and Yeltsin banging on local pub’s door: Chequers and its history of hosting world leaders\n <\/p>\n
A country house in the scenic Chiltern Hills is the scene for Donald Trump’s meeting with Sir Keir Starmer today – as we outline in the post below this one.<\/p>\n
Chequers, as it’s known, has been the prime minister’s residence for more than a century and has hosted a long line of world leaders.<\/p>\n
It was given to the nation after the First World War by Lord Lees, one of then Prime Minister David Lloyd George’s ministers.<\/p>\n
It was around that time that Lloyd George planted an oak tree on the grounds, which still stands today.<\/p>\n
Originally, Chequers was explicitly for “the rest and recreation of prime ministers”.<\/p>\n For years, Chequers was used for just that – relaxation with its tennis court, rolling grounds and swimming pool, and for the private entertainment of political allies.<\/p>\n Keen artist Winston Churchill is said to have taken his brushes to “improve” the depiction of a mouse on an oil painting by Rubens hanging on the wood-panelled walls.<\/p>\n Margaret Thatcher usually spent Christmas there and liked to use visits to what she called “Chequers church” for impromptu soundbites for the media.<\/p>\n Tony Blair had to get special permission from the trustees to use the house for a TV interview after Labour accepted a \u00a31m donation from Formula One.<\/p>\n A history of hosting world leaders<\/b><\/p>\n An invitation to Chequers has become the biggest honour the prime minister can bestow on visiting foreign leaders.<\/p>\n Blair held intimate meetings there with both President Bill Clinton and his successor, George W Bush.<\/p>\n German Chancellor Angela Merkel liked the Buckinghamshire countryside so much she asked for a return visit. She then went for a ramble with David Cameron, who ended up having to help the chancellor climb over a barbed wire fence.<\/p>\n Chinese President Xi Jinping pulled a pint in the nearby Plough pub and joked about buying it.<\/p>\n After another long Sunday lunch at the Plough, Cameron’s motorcade swept out, leaving his young daughter Nancy behind.<\/p>\n Sir John Major often tells how when he turned up with former Russian leader Boris Yeltsin before opening time – the landlord refused to believe the Russian president was banging on the door.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source news.sky.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pints with Xi and Yeltsin banging on local pub’s door: Chequers and its history of hosting world leaders A country house in the scenic Chiltern Hills is the scene for Donald Trump’s meeting with Sir Keir Starmer today – as we outline in the post below this one. Chequers, as it’s known, has been the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2031123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2031122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Trump-state-visit-live-President-to-meet-Starmer-after-promise.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2031122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2031122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2031123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2031122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2031122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2031122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}