Chancellor of the Exchequer Lords, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown respectively, swapped apartments, as the Chancellor's apartment in No. 11 was bigger and thus better suited to the needs of Blair (who had children living with him, including one born during his tenure) than Brown who was at that stage unmarried. Dorneywood is the summer residence that is traditionally made available to the chancellor, though it is the prime minister who ultimately decides who may use it. Gordon Brown, on becoming chancellor in 1997, refused to use it and the house, which is set in of parkland, was allocated to Deputy Prime Minister John
Exchequer of Pleas involved in the Exchequer of Pleas as a check on the Lord High Treasurer. He evolved out of the Lord Chancellor's clerk, or "clericus cancellari", who sat in the Exchequer and was responsible for correcting and sealing writs of summons, also holding the Exchequer's copy of the Great Seal. The earliest appearances of such a clerk in the records come from 1220, when a document was signed by Robert de Neville, "cancellarius". The Lord Chancellors of the time were clergymen with little interest in judicial or fiscal matters; as a result, the clerk became more independent from the Chancellor and,