STATELY Breamore House near Fordingbridge doubled for Churchill's Chequers retreat when cameras rolled to film a forthcoming drama about the Word War Two Prime Minister's finest hours.

The Elizabethan mansion, home of the Hulse family for the past 250 years, is strikingly similar in date and architecture to the 16th century Buckinghamshire house which has been country home to British Prime Ministers since it was given to the nation in 1921.

Film crews took external and interior shots at Breamore for scenes in the Churchill at War drama now in production as a sequel to the acclaimed Gathering Storm screened by the BBC in 2002 and starring Alb-ert Finney as Churchill and Vanessa Redgrave as his wife Clementine.

Irish actor Brendan Gleason takes the title role in the two-hour dramatisation of Churchill's war years and Janet McTeer plays "Clemmie", whose drawing room scenes were filmed in the Blue Room at Breamore.

Churchill at War, due for release in America next year before being shown on UK television, is being made by KBO productions and directed by Thaddeus O'Sullivan who is using a variety of South Coast locations for the backdrops.

And the cameras will be back at Breamore later in the year when the Countryside Museum's recreation of a period cottage and garage are pressed into service for home front scenes of listeners tuning in to hear Churchill's famous wartime speeches on the wireless.

While Breamore may not have housed Churchill during World War Two, the house was a billet for American General George Patton in the run-up to D-Day when thousands of Allied troops were camped and tra-ining in the New Forest prior to the invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

And that war time security was mirrored by the hush-hush operation surrounding last weekend's filming as regiment of light, sound and camera technicians descended on Breamore with military precision to set up their scenes, capture the shots, and make an ordered withdrawal.

"It was quite an eye-opening experi-ence," said head guide Diane Rayner.

Breamore House and the surrounding village has a number of previous film and television credits including recent screen versions of Thomas Hardy's The Woodlanders and the 1990s serialisation of the classic novel Children of the New Forest.