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
Chancellor of the Exchequer serve in this way was Lord Denman in 1834. The chancellor is the third-oldest major state office in English and British history; it originally carried responsibility for the Exchequer, the medieval English institution for the collection and auditing of royal revenues which dates from the Anglo-Saxon period and survived the Norman conquest of England. The earliest surviving records which are the results of the exchequer's audit, date from 1129–30 under King Henry I and show continuity from previous years. The chancellor controlled monetary policy as well as fiscal policy until 1997, when the Bank of England was granted independent control