Churchill’s many talents - War leader, Nobel laureate… butterfly enthusiast

22/08/2010 15:48:56 Churchill. Chartwell and butterflies
August 2010. He led Britain to victory in the second-world-war and is a world renowned historian but Sir Winston Churchill is much less well known for his lifelong love of butterflies. The butterfly house that Churchill created at his beloved Chartwell in Kent in the 1940s has this year seen butterflies bred there for the first time in 50 years.

Plans to start breeding butterflies at Chartwell began in the summer of 1939 when Churchill consulted the leading expert on breeding butterflies, L. Hugh Newman. With the intervention of the war years the plans didn't come to fruition until 1946 when Newman designed plans to convert the summerhouse into a butterfly house to breed butterflies and then release them into the garden.

Butterfly collector
Matthew Oates, Nature Conservation Adviser at the National Trust and butterfly expert, said: "Even war leaders love butterflies. Churchill's lifelong secret passion for butterflies began as a young boy when he went ‘butterflying' in the fields near to his school in Sussex. As a young man he was a serious butterfly collector on his travels across the world and later would have spent many a summer day enjoying the beauty of butterflies in his garden at Chartwell."

Peacocks and painted ladies
This summer saw the emergence of the first butterflies since the 1950s with the beautiful peacocks and painted ladies stretching their wings and fluttering into the garden at Chartwell. Six peacocks emerged in July and painted ladies during August.

The garden team at Chartwell faithfully recreated the butterfly house using descriptions taken from articles written by Newman. The butterfly house was originally a game larder, which was then converted to a cool summer house. Churchill adapted the latter, erecting a muslin netting doorway over the entrance.

Butterflies, including small tortoiseshells, swallowtails, peacocks and speckled woods, were bred in cages seated on the summer house benches, and Churchill often sat there and watched them emerge, releasing them into the garden when ready to fly.

Today a code advocates that only native British butterflies should be bred for release, and following consultation with Defra and Butterfly Conservation larvae of locally occurring species were sourced to help stock the newly refurbished butterfly house.

Butterfly walk
Visitors to Chartwell can also wander along the Butterfly walk and follow in the footsteps of guests to Churchill's garden parties in the 1940s and 1950s.

Matthew Oates added: "Chartwell was way ahead of its time with its focus on making sure that they had a wildlife friendly garden and it was also a pioneer of butterfly gardening. Mixed in with the more formal nature of an English country garden Churchill insisted that buddleia and thistles were planted to attract butterflies and other insects."

Chartwell was bought by Winston Churchill in 1924 and remained his home till the end of his life in 1965. It was a source of inspiration to him and his particular love of nature and the beautiful Kent countryside.

Dr Martin Warren, Chief Executive of Butterfly Conservation, said: "It's amazing to think that Churchill was planning this butterfly house at the start of the war, no doubt a welcome distraction from the weighty affairs of state. His pioneering garden inspired many others and helped spread an enthusiasm for butterfly gardening. Many UK butterflies are in dramatic decline and so it is great news that they are thriving at Chartwell this year."