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A beloved national charity is splashing out £375,000 to repair an 18th Century country retreat that's already given free to George Osborne.

The National Trust will pay for five years of repairs to Dorneywood, the Buckinghamshire mansion reserved as a getaway for the powerful top Tory.

David Cameron gets to decide who occupies a spread of grace-and-favour homes - and settled on his loyal Chancellor for the lavish 21-room, 215-acre estate.

The house, rebuilt in 1910 after a fire, now needs £1m thanks to a 'significant backlog' of maintenance work.

But because it was donated to the state through the National Trust, the heritage charity - which charges members £60 a year - was called on to help fund the work.

(Image: Getty)

George Osborne will not have to pay for any of the repairs, and nor does he pay council tax on the house.

That's despite officials refusing to reveal who he's met there because it's for 'private use' .

It emerged during the Leveson Inquiry that he invited former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and her husband to stay for a weekend in 2010.

The National Trust will pay five annual instalments of £75,000 a year to repair the house, with the rest of the cash coming from a charity called the Dorneywood Endowment Trust.

The fund was set up by Lord Courtauld-Thomson, the peer who left the house to future ministers in the 1940s, and raises most of its money through investments.

(Image: REX)

The house was used by Gordon Brown from 1997 before being handed over in 1999 to John Prescott, who was famously pictured playing croquet in the grounds.

Apart from Lord Prescott it's mostly been used by Chancellors of the Exchequer.

A National Trust spokesman said: "It has been a condition of the bequest to the National Trust since 1954 that Dorneywood is held as a Ministerial home.

"Under the terms of the bequest, the Dorneywood Endowment Trust was established as a separate charity to care for the house and gardens.

"The relationship between the Dorneywood Trust and the National Trust is therefore effectively that of a tenant - landlord.

(Image: PA)

"In 2014 we negotiated a lease with the Dorneywood Trust after identifying significant maintenance costs for the property, totalling around £1m.

"As part of the new lease, we agreed to provide a voluntary grant towards the upkeep of Dorneywood of £75,000 a year. This will continue for five years.

"The grant is a contribution towards the essential maintenance of the building.

"Under the lease agreement we have also opened up access to Dorneywood for visitors who can now visit the gardens from April to September on selected days, and the house for a limited number of days each year."