Broughton Castle
Broughton Castle is a medieval fortified manor house in the village of Broughton , about 2 miles southwest of Banbury in the English county of Oxfordshire . The Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes , Barone Saye and Sele family live there . The castle is located in a park and is surrounded by a wide moat. It is open to the public in summer.
history
Sir John de Broughton had the castle built as a mansion in 1300 on a site where the confluence of three streams provided a natural site for a mansion with a moat . In 1377 the house was sold to William von Wykeham , Bishop of Winchester , and has remained in his family ever since. Sir Thomas Wykeham had the original house fortified in 1406. In 1451 it passed by inheritance to the Fiennes family , barons of Saye and Sele. From 1550, '' Richard Fiennes '' had the medieval manor house converted into a Tudor- style house, which he expanded significantly. King James I stayed at Broughton Castle many times.
In the 17th century William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele , called Old Subtlety , was one of the leading activists against King Charles I. Therefore, the castle served the parliamentarians , such as B. John Pym and John Hampden , used as a meeting place in the decade before the English Civil War . The 1st Viscount raised troops to fight the king in the unsuccessful Battle of Edgehill in 1642 . In the days that followed, royalist troops besieged the castle, quickly overpowering the defenders and taking the castle for a time. After the hostilities ended, renovations had to be undertaken to remedy the damage caused by royalists. The 1st Viscount was able to avoid the signing of the death sentence against King Charles I and was thus able to make his peace with the crown after the Stuart Restoration .
Broughton Castle fell into disrepair in the 19th century but was saved by Frederick Fiennes, 16th Lord Saye and Sele . He commissioned the prominent Victorian architect Sir George Gilbert Scott . At the turn of the century the house was rented to Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox , a lady of fine Edwardian society, who redesigned the gardens and hosted King Edward VII at the castle.
Broughton Castle is still the seat of the Fiennes family until the 2010s by Nathaniel Fiennes, 21st Baron Saye and Sele , and by his son and family since 2015.
Main rooms
The gatehouse is from 1406 and the block to the left, now used as a souvenir shop and café, has Gothic moat windows. The main facade is medieval on the left, but in the middle and right in Elizabethan style. The chapel is decorated in the 14th century style, while the other main rooms are predominantly Elizabethan. The knight's hall extends behind the main facade. On the upper floor there is a long gallery from which one can overlook the garden behind the house.
The prime bedrooms have two beautifully finished mantels. In the Queen's Bedroom (used by Anna of Denmark ) there is one made of stone, which is kept in a style "that is reminiscent of the Renaissance, but at the same time has developed a very imperfect understanding of what it is all supposed to be". This was probably the work of a local stonemason who had access to an ornamental pattern book such as that of Hans Vredeman de Vries ; the two human heads still look very medieval. The other mantelpiece in the bedchamber that James I used offers another stylistic extreme: a very shiny and expansive stucco work in a style similar to that of the first school of Fontainebleau and probably not created by English artisans. The central medallion with a mythological scene was designed by Rosso Fiorentino and also appears in the Fontainebleau Palace . It is flanked by two naked boys. It is believed that they come from the Italian artists who King Henry VIII employed at Nonsuch Palace . The parts were most likely made elsewhere and then taken to Broughton Castle.
There are several beautiful stucco ceilings in the house, the most spectacular of which are in the large salon on the upper floor and in the oak room below. Hand-painted Chinese wallpaper from the 18th century with various patterns of trees, birds and flowers is in three bedrooms and is in very good condition. In the attic there is a room that is supposed to be the "without ears" where the 1st Viscount held conspiratorial meetings with the parliamentary leaders in the years before the civil war. The gardens have long herb borders, which are most beautiful in summer.
In film and television
Parts of the films Oxford Blues (1984), The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982), Three Men and a Little Lady (1990), King George - A Kingdom for More Minds (1994) and Shakespeare in Love (1998) were filmed in the castle. She has also been the setting for parts of the television films and series Elizabeth The Virgin Queen , Friends and Crocodiles , 1975 Morecambe at Wise Christmas Show and Noel's House Party . The castle also served as a location for many other films and television productions, such as B. Jane Eyre and Hilary Mantels Wolf Hall .
Concerts
In August 1981, the electric folk band Fairport Convention performed their annual concert in Broughton Castle and not, as usual, in the village of Cropredy . The concert was recorded and released on the album Moat on the Ledge in 1982 .
In the literature
In April 2009 William Fiennes published his novella Music Room . This fictional memory of his childhood and a brother with epilepsy is set in Broughton Castle, but it is not called that in the novella. He describes the setting of his novella as "a wonderful poem of reverence to his family, his parents, the magical moated castle that was his home".
Individual evidence
- ↑ Plantagenet Somerset Fry: David & Charles Book of Castles . David & Charles, Newton Abbot 1980. ISBN 0-7153-7976-3
- ↑ Peter Furtado, Candida Geddes, Nathaniel Harris, Hazel Harrison, Paul Pettit: Guide to Castles in Britain . Chapter: Reference to Puritan an Parliamentary Meeting of Like Minded People at the Castle Before the Battle of Edgehill . Hamlyn - Ordnance Survey 1987. ISBN 978-0-600558-69-9 . P. 138
- ↑ The Garden . Broughton Castle. Retrieved December 22, 2015.
- ^ A b c John Julius Norwich: The Architecture of Southern England . Macmillan, London 1985. ISBN 0-333220-37-4 . Pp. 483-484.
- ↑ a b c Simon Jenkins: England's Thousand Best Houses . Allen Lane, 2003. ISBN 0-713995-96-3 . Pp. 597-598.
- ↑ Malcolm Airs: The Buildings of Britain: A Guide and Gazetteer, Tudor and Jacobean . Barrie & Jenkins, London 1982. ISBN 0-091478-31-6 . P. 144.
- ^ Nicholas Allen: Broughton Castle and the Fiennes Family . Wykeham Press, Adderbury 2010. ISBN 978-0-9566059-0-0 . Pp. 62-63.
- ↑ Patrick Humphries: Meet on the Ledge - a history of Fairport Convention . Eel Pie, London 1982. ISBN 0-906008-46-8 . P. 103.
- ↑ Here be gargoyles: An interview with William Fiennes . Scotland on Sunday 3 April 2009. Retrieved 23 December 2015.
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 2 ′ 26.3 " N , 1 ° 23 ′ 31.2" W.