National Trust opts to extinguish cigar sales at Winston Churchill’s Kent country home, after hosting a humidor in its Chartwell shop for more than a decade

  • Chartwell was the home of Churchill’s former husband. It used to sell cigars from its shop.
  • Due to low demand, sales were halted 
  • Churchill knew that cigars were an integral part of his public image.  










The National Trust will stop selling cigars at Winston Churchill’s Kent Country Home after more than a decade.

Chartwell was the home of Sir Winston Churchill’s former residence. He displayed many of his signature cigars in their ashtrays at Chartwell’s Kentish home.

Chartwell is now owned by Chartwell and the National Trust. Chartwell made Churchill’s passion for Cuban cigars a selling point.

Its website lists cigars as the 50 most important objects that sum up Britain’s wartime Prime Minister. Churchill is believed to have smoked approximately 150,000 of them during his life.   

The website reads: ‘No object more immediately connects us to its owner than Winston Churchill and his cigars.’

After the National Trust halted sales, people can now smoke a Romeo y Julieta.

Due to decreased demand, the National Trust has decided not to sell the cigars at Chartwell’s Chartwell shop in its humidor. According to the i.   

People wanting to puff on a Romeo y Julieta cigar can do so no longer after the National Trust owned Chartwell (pictured) decided to halt sales of the product

After Chartwell, National Trust-owned Chartwell (pictured), decided to stop selling Romeo y Julieta cigars, people can no longer puff on them. 

Winston Churchill: A cigar-loving Prime Minster

After only a short stay in Cuba for a couple of months, Churchill was almost instantly hooked on the most well-known Cuban product. 

He would occasionally smoke different brands but he preferred Cuban cigars, Romeo y Julieta or La Aroma de Cuba. 

His lungs were full of air as he worked, ate and attended meetings.  

The cigars would burn indefinitely without him inhaling, which could have led to a reduction in the actual amount of tobacco he was inhaling. 

Photographs of Churchill with his bowler hat and omnipresent cigars became commonplace, making it difficult to separate the man from his trademark accessories as his decades-long political career ebbed and flowed

Source: Biography 

The trust stated in a statement that it regularly reviews products on the basis of consumer demand, profitability, and ethical sourcing. 

Chartwell Shop discontinued ‘Cigars due to lower demand than other products. 

“The Chartwell shop stocks an extensive range of Churchill-related products.

Churchill was 21, when revolutionaries bombarded him with cigars.  

The wartime prime minister was said to have smoked up to eight cigars per day. 

Sometimes he smoked only the first few millimetres before throwing away or giving it to another person. 

Chartwell’s trust curator Katherine Carter said that Chartwell’s property gardener would also smoke excess tobacco from his pipe. 

Churchill was a big fan of cigars.

According to Ms Carter, he was aware of this fact.

She stated that it was something she saw in an anecdote arising from the 1946 speech of American President James Monroe titled “Iron Curtain”, which was a remark on Soviet policies.

Ms Carter said:  ‘On the way, he called for the car to stop as they neared their destination.

“He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cigar, which he then put in his mouth, unslit. 

He looked at a colleague, and said “Never forget to trademark.”

Churchill is said to have discovered he liked puffing on Cuban cigars as a past time while under bombardment by revolutionaries during a visit to the island when he was 21. Pictured: Churchill puffing on a cigar

Churchill was 21, when he discovered that Cuban cigars were a good way to pass the time, despite being under attack by revolutionaries. Pictured: Churchill smoking a cigar 

Jacob Field, another Churchill expert said that the wartime prime minister would have likely agreed to the National Trust decision, according to market logic.   

The Eccentric Mrs Churchill is the work of Mr Field. A Cambridge academic, he said that statesmen are free marketers.

He said he understood that the National Trust made this decision to maximize profits because his finances had been ‘parlous’ throughout his life.   

Chartwell’s academic hope is that it can offer another product Churchill loved like whisky and Pol Roger champagne, Roquefort Cheese, Roquefort cheese, or black cherry jam. 

Cigars were a huge part of Churchill's public image, something he knew, according to Katherine Carter, the trust's curator at Chartwell. Pictured: Churchill holds a cigar at Chartwell

According to Chartwell’s curator Katherine Carter, cigars played a significant role in Churchill’s public image. Pictured: Churchill holding a Chartwell cigar

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