Historic Description of Broughton Castle

Broughton Castle

This is one of the most beautiful castles in all England, not from majesty and splendid situation like Harlech, Caer Cynan, or St Michael’s Mount, but for sheer loveliness of the combination of water, woods, and picturesque buildings of the later and more decorative age of military architecture. There are many lake-castles in England, such as Leeds, Bodiham, Maxstoke, and Shirburn (Oxfordshire), but of none is the effect so charming to the eye as that of Broughton. Seen on a sunny summer’s day, when the sheets of water-lilies in the lake are in flower, it is almost theatrically lovely – the visitor half believed that a beautiful panorama has been produced by some landscape artist for his special benefit. The explanation can be found in the fact that the site chosen for defence by a fourteenth century builder, who was honestly seeking for military strength, happened to be picturesque, but that the effect of the present scene is mainly produced not by the remains of the original castle, but by the many-pinnacled and many-windowed Elizabethan and Jacobean buildings which have incorporated the old walls in their broader and loftier mass.

Broughton is quite late as castles go. The first builder would seem to have been Sir Thomas Broughton, nearly the last of a race which had held the manor for two centuries. Somewhere about the year 1300 he took advantage of the obliging Sor brook, which could readily be dammed up to produce a lake, and created a broad sheet of water with a rectangular island in its centre. The only approach was by a narrow causeway across the lake, which was defended by a very solid barbican or gate-tower. Seventy or eighty years later Sir Thomas Wykeham got a “licence to crenellate” and turned what may have originally been no more than a moated manor into a castle. To him belong the battlements along the eastern and part of the northern front, whose shape shows that he left Broughton as a rectangular castle with square corner-towers. It may also have been Wykeham who erected a low stone enceinte all round the island, so turning it into a “bailey,” of which the castle proper formed the inner house of defence. This outer stone wall was still visible as late as 1700, but was taken down before 1800, so that what was once a bailey is now only a broad lawn.

After the Broughtons died out, their castle went rapidly through the hands of several successive owners – Mauduits and Hungerfords. Bishop William of Wykeham, bought it from a Hungerford and gave it to his nephew, Sir Thomas Wykeham: but this family only endured for two generations, and the lands, devolved on an heiress, Margaret Wykeham, who married William Fiennes, Lord Saye and Sele, the son of that Lord Treasurer Saye who was murdered by Jack Cade’s mob in 1451. Since his day, however, Broughton has descended in regular succession to the owners of the title of Saye, with only one break in the male line, when, in 1781, Richard Fiennes, last of the original stock, died, leaving as his heir, by a female descent, his cousin, Thomas Twisleton, from whom came the Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, owners of Broughton to this day (1926).

The Lords Saye of the times of Elizabeth and James I, like so many of their contemporaries, were discontented with the residential amenities of their castle, but did not destroy it, merely adding a very great mansion in the best style of their day to the north and west sides of the building, and inserting in some places larger Tudor windows in the parts of the old front which were allowed to stand. When viewing Broughton the battlemented walls of the old castle can be seen joining on to the gabled bays of the new, with their immense projecting windows, which form such a large proportion of the whole house. The interior is even more effective than the exterior would lead one to guess – long galleries and fine rooms, with plaster ceilings in the most elaborate and intricate patterns, sometimes showing pendants, armorial stained glass, and excellent panelling and carved work on and over the doors. This is in all respects a model of Jacobean mansion of the best sort.

The great man of the House of Fiennes was the eighth baron, William, who held the title from 1613 to 1662, and was one of the main contributors to the new building. He was the eldest and most wily of the knot of peers who took the side of the Parliament and from his skilful guidance of their policy got the nickname of “Old Subtlety.” Local tradition points out an upper room in the third story in which he is said to have gathered together Hampden, Pym, St John, Essex, and the younger Vane for a consultation at which they made up their minds to press matters even to the point of civil war. Lord Saye was the first peer who refused to pay ship-money in 1636, and his name was prominent in every subsequent political move till 1648, when he refused to side with Cromwell and the military party, and retired from public life. He strenuously declined to sit as a member of the Protector’s new House of Lords, and in 1660 – though now 78 years of age – emerged from his retirement to declare in favour of the Restoration of the Monarchy. He accepted honorary office under Charles II, and was one of the very few leading Parliamentarians of 1642 who came unharmed through the whole eighteen years of turmoil, and died in prosperity, aged four score years and over.

After visiting the castle it is worth while to inspect the church, where there is a fine group of recumbent effigies of Broughtons and Sayes, ranging from the time of Edward I downward. It lies hard by the bridge-tower so that the Lord of Broughton had not far to go, when he wished to gaze on the tombs of his ancestors or to hear mass.

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