a William At-Well. The origin of the name is the Chart Well, a spring to the north of the current house, Chart being an Old English word for rough ground. The site had been built upon at least as early as the 16th century, when the estate was called Well Street. Henry VIII was reputed to have stayed in the house during his courtship of Anne Boleyn at nearby Hever Castle. Elements of the Tudor house are still visible; the Historic England listing for Chartwell notes that 16th- (or possibly 17th-) century brickwork can be seen in some of the external walls. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the house was used as a farmhouse and its ownership was subject to frequent change. On 22 September 1836, the property was auctioned at Cheapside, advertised as "a suitable abode for a genteel family". In 1848 it was purchased by John Campbell Colquhoun, a former MP; the Campbell Colquhouns were a family of Scottish landowners, lawyers and politicians. The original farmhouse was enlarged and modified during their ownership, including the addition of the stepped gables, a Scottish baronial genuflection to the land of their fathers. By the time of the sale to Churchill, it was, in the words of Oliver Garnett, author of the 2008 guidebook to the house, an example of "Victorian architecture at its least attractive, a ponderous red-brick country mansion of tile-hung gables and poky oriel windows". Tilden, in his "highly unreliable" memoirs, True Remembrances, wrote of "creating Chartwell out of the drabness of Victorian umbrageousness". Churchill at Chartwell 1922 to 1939 Churchill first saw Chartwell in July 1921, shortly before the house and estate were to be auctioned. He returned the same month with his wife Clementine, who was initially attracted to the property, although her enthusiasm cooled during subsequent visits. In September 1922, when the house had failed to sell at auction, he was offered it for £5,500. He paid £5,000, after his first offer of £4,800, made because "the house will have to be very largely rebuilt, and the presence of dry rot is a very serious adverse factor", was rejected. The seller was Captain Archibald John Campbell Colquhoun, who had inherited the house in June 1922 on the death of his brother. Campbell Colquhoun had been a contemporary of Churchill's at Harrow School in the 1880s. On completion of the sale in September 1922, Churchill