Broughton Castle (and Church), Near Banbury, Oxfordshire, Southern England - July 2024

Broughton Castle is a medieval fortified manor house in the village of Broughton, which is approximately 3.5 km (2 miles) southwest of Banbury in Oxfordshire, Southern England).
It is the home of the Fiennes (in full Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes) family, Barons Saye and Sele. The castle is situated on an artificial island in pastureland and is surrounded by a wide moat. Across the small bridge lies the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, surrounded by its historic cemetery.
This video was filmed during a summer-afternoon's visit to this marvellous spot. The gatehouse dates from 1406, and the block to its left, now the shop and cafe, has Gothic windows facing the moat. The main facade is medieval to the left, but in Elizabethan prodigy house style at the centre and right. The chapel is 14th-century Decorated Gothic, the other main rooms that are opened mainly Elizabethan. The great hall runs along the facade. Upstairs there is a long gallery overlooking the gardens at the rear.
The best bedrooms have two very elaborate chimneypieces, in the Queen's Bedroom (used by Anne of Denmark) a stone one heavily decorated with ornament in a style "proclaiming the Renaissance but simultaneously revealing a still very imperfect comprehension of what it was all about". The other chimneypiece, in the bedroom James I used, is at another stylistic extreme; a very polished and spacious stucco piece in a style comparable to that of the First School of Fontainebleau, and probably not made by English artists. The central medallion, with a mythological scene, was designed by Rosso Fiorentino, and also appears in the Palace of Fontainebleau. This is flanked by two large nude boys. The Italian artists of the Tudor court Henry VIII used at Nonsuch Palace have been suggested; the pieces were almost certainly made elsewhere and taken to Broughton.
There are several fine plasterwork ceilings, the most spectacular in the Great Parlour on the first floor, and the Oak Room below it. There is 18th-century painted Chinese wallpaper of different tree, bird and flower designs in three bedrooms, in very good condition. At roof level there is a room believed to be that "with no ears", where the 1st viscount plotted with Parliamentary leaders in the years before the Civil War. The gardens have long herbaceous borders, at their best in summer.