Broughton Castle shows how privately-owned houses can offer more to the serious tourist

I have been a member of the National Trust for more than 20 years. Given my passion for the history, art and architecture of England, contributing those membership fees every year is one of my ways of giving back. But there’s no denying that my interests and those of the Trust have moved apart over the years.

 

They’ve drifted ever further away from houses and history to environmentalism, “below stairs” stories, children’s activities and hosting holidays. The members’ magazine, which once I once consumed cover-to-cover, has been “popularised” to a lightweight skim. If this is what they need to do to get children and urban folk with no interest in history to support heritage, then so be it. Maybe someday, someone who came for the Easter egg hunt or a peak at Victorian kitchen equipment will thrill to Palladian architecture or the political machinations that took place in majestic halls. I will continue to give, because even light-touch heritage is better than none at all. But my expectations for what the organisation can offer me have shrunk.

Happily, I’ve discovered the Historic Houses Association to fill the spaces I’ve been missing. This organisation includes all of the blockbuster stately homes, like Chatsworth and Blenheim Palace, that are still in private ownership. But perhaps more importantly, the bulk of its members are owners of moderately-sized estates who have been valiantly keeping up the side. Few have the resources of the people who built these places. There are countless stories of remarkable innovation as families have expanded their stately home-based businesses in every way possible to keep heritage alive, both for themselves and the nation. The National Trust is in many ways a collection of the houses of people who gave up. The HHA offers up the survivors.

And in this variation, you get a very different sort of organisation. I’m guessing the HHA is a more homogenous membership than the vast Trust. Probably older, possibly better educated and certainly more focused on built heritage. The HHA unabashedly celebrates history, unashamed of the great names who lived in their houses. They don’t shy away from detailed knowledge: members are regularly invited to online lectures that dig into the history and architecture of the properties at a level that wouldn’t be out of place in a university curriculum. And yes, their somewhat more scholarly members’ magazine is something I lap up in its entirety.

The best part of HHA houses is that they are still lived in, and used for a variety of purposes. Which often makes them more interesting than the static stage sets of the National Trust. You also tend to find far more informed guides inside the houses. They’re often employees rather than volunteers, often having been associated with the house and its owners for many years, and they take their jobs seriously. I always learn new things from HHA stewards.

A glorious case in point is Broughton Castle, not far from Banbury in the Cotswolds. It is one of the most romantically picturesque stately homes in the country; a multi-gabled Medieval and Elizabethan confection of golden stone still entirely surrounded by its reflective moat. It’s at the bottom of a gentle valley, surrounded by pastures of swaying grass, sheep, and the odd, ancient oak sloping up to the treeline. It offers the instant deja vu of properties that have appeared in scores of historical films as someplace else; most notably in my awareness as Viola de Lesseps’ house in Shakespeare in Love. It has seen all of the battles and political intrigue that the word “castle” promises, though today it is a picture of sleepy peace and quiet.

The interiors are a pleasing pastiche of time periods, from medieval foundations to modern enhancements. (Another benefit of privately-owned houses: owners continue to update and add to collections for the future.) Much of its preservation is due to the fact that the family lost interest and let the place out through the late Georgian and Victorian periods; what you see now is a massive amount of sensitive restoration from the early 20th century. (In this respect it’s a lot like the equally magical Haddon Hall, another HHA member in the Peak District.) There is a delightful contrast between the great hall, where ghosts from the Wars of the Roses would feel at home, to the rooms along the upper gallery which are light, airy, and fantastically elegant. The place has been in the same family for more than 600 years, giving them the chance to collect a lot of fabulous stuff.

There are masterpieces aplenty here, from paintings and furniture to exotic porcelain and priceless hand-painted Chinese wallpaper in several bedrooms, two of which offered accommodation to visiting monarchs. But there is also quirky stuff like the oldest surviving top hat awarded in cricket for taking three consecutive wickets; an award that gave rise to the sporting term hat-trick. There’s a good collection of Civil War arms and armour, some impressive plaster ceilings and a couple of unusual English renaissance chimney pieces. The current owner, the twenty first Baron Saye and Sele, has commissioned a fantastic piece of modern woodwork as a new bed in one of the rooms with that Chinese wallpaper. You might expect a clash, but the elegant curves of the abstract frame somehow feel a fitting part of the forest through which those birds have been flying for 200 years.

The castle benefits from a particularly fascinating family full of creative and daring types. The name is Fiennes. (Technically Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes.) You might have heard of the ones who went into acting and directing. Or the famous explorer. The daughter of the house is a talented painter who’s been the official artist on multiple trips with the Prince of Wales. The current baron, now a venerable 101, helped liberate Bergen-Belsen. Those are just the living ones. 

The head of household during the Civil War had a traumatic time trying to walk a sensible centre ground, getting into trouble with both sides and spending some time incarcerated in the Tower of London before being restored to his lands and pardoned by Charles II. He marked England’s eventual return to peace by redecorating the family sitting room behind the great hall … one of the castle’s most magnificent yet comfortable spaces, full of light from walls of Elizabethan windows on three sides … with sumptuous panelling and and interior porch with fanciful Jacobean pinnacles. (Top photo) The Latin motto above the door translates as “There is no pleasure in the memory of the past.” A fitting memorial for a soldier who wanted to put the past to bed and move on.

In addition to politicians, and the famous cricketer who won the hat, there are also a fair few writers in the family. Most notable to people who have studied English history is Celia Fiennes, Who explored England on horseback in the mid 18th century… a kind of tourism that didn’t exist for anyone at the time, much less women… and wrote a bestselling book about it.

The house tour exits into one of most romantic rose gardens I have ever seen, built within ruined walls with the castle looming above it and the moat glittering through old, empty windows. Seen in high season for the roses, it’s a bit like a Chelsea Flower Show garden; it seems too perfect to be real. This is a place for lingering, whether in the gardens, the tea shop in the building next to the guard tower through which you entered or out in the park looking back at the castle. I spent an hour in the shade of a gnarled oak tree trying … unsuccessfully … to capture the beauty of the scene in a watercolour. Fortunately, when it comes to this hobby it’s the doing rather than the result that brings joy.

Broughton would make few people’s Top 10 lists of attractions in the Cotswolds. It probably should. It’s a hidden gem that will warm the heart of anyone who loves the romance of English history. And if you want to get in for free, all you have to do is join the HHA.