Broughton Castle

Long before the moat, the ground carried a Roman villa. A lead-lined sarcophagus holding the burial of a wealthy Romano-British woman was found and partly investigated here in the 1960s, and the wider site was discovered by the metal detectorist and amateur archaeologist Keith Westcott. Geophysical survey indicated a large winged or courtyard villa rustica comparable with the one at nearby North Leigh, and limited excavation by Time Team in 2021 showed that at least two wings existed. The villa was occupied and developed from the first to the fourth century AD, with large adjoining terraced ponds used to manage water flows. Mosaic tesserae and hypocaust flue tiles, together with the sarcophagus, suggested a villa of high status.

Sir John de Broughton built the manor house in 1300 where the confluence of three streams made a natural site for a moated manor, about two miles south-west of Banbury. The house was sold in 1377 to William of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester, and has stayed in the same family ever since. Sir Thomas Wykeham crenellated the original house in 1406, the year from which the gatehouse dates, and in 1451 Broughton passed by inheritance to the Fiennes family, Barons Saye and Sele.

From 1550 Richard Fiennes transformed the medieval manor into a Tudor house, expanding the building significantly. James I stayed at Broughton on several occasions, and Anne of Denmark used the chamber still known as the Queen's Bedroom.

The 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, known as "Old Subtlety", was one of the leading activists against Charles I, and in the decade before the Civil War his house served Parliamentarian sympathisers such as John Pym and John Hampden as a meeting place. A room at roof level is believed to be the one "with no ears", where the viscount plotted with the Parliamentary leaders in those years.

The 1st Viscount raised troops to fight the king at the inconclusive Battle of Edgehill in 1642. In the days that followed, Royalist troops besieged Broughton, quickly overcame the defenders and occupied the house for a time; once hostilities ended, work was needed to repair the damage done by Royalist cannon. Lord Saye and Sele had evaded signing Charles I's death warrant, and was able to make his peace with the Crown after the Restoration.

Broughton fell into decay in the 19th century and was rescued by the Venerable Frederick Fiennes, 16th Baron Saye and Sele and Archdeacon of Hereford, who brought in Sir George Gilbert Scott. At the turn of the century the house was rented by the Edwardian socialite Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox, who transformed the gardens and hosted Edward VII; it was also the childhood home of Ivy Cavendish-Bentinck, Duchess of Portland.

The Fiennes family live there still. In August 1981 Fairport Convention held their annual reunion concert at Broughton rather than at the usual Cropredy, and the recording was released as Moat on the Ledge in 1982. William Fiennes, youngest son of the 21st Baron Saye and Sele, made the house the setting of his 2009 memoir The Music Room, describing it throughout without ever naming it.