Some places wear their history lightly, and Broughton Castle is one of them. You arrive down a quiet lane outside Banbury, cross a medieval moat that still holds water, and step into a house that has belonged to the same family since 1377. It feels less like visiting a stately home and more like being let in on a secret.
Broughton is not a castle in the turrets-and-drawbridge sense. It's a fortified manor house, built in the 1300s and remodelled during the Elizabethan period, and the result is something far more interesting: a place where medieval stonework meets Tudor plasterwork, where Civil War history sits alongside a family's collection of portraits spanning six hundred years. The Fiennes family (yes, related to the actor and the explorer) still live here, and the rooms have the slightly rumpled warmth of a house that is genuinely inhabited rather than curated for visitors. The gardens are lovely, too: walled borders, old roses, and a walk around the moat that catches the light beautifully on a clear day.
You'll recognise the place if you've watched Shakespeare in Love, or The Hollow Crown, or any number of period films that have used Broughton as a location. It photographs extraordinarily well, but the real pleasure is just being there, wandering the rooms at your own pace without crowds. Opening days are limited (Wednesdays and Sundays in summer, plus bank holidays), so it's worth checking before you set off. From Well Cottage, the drive takes about twenty-five minutes through rolling countryside towards Banbury, and you can easily pair it with lunch in town or a stop at Wroxton on the way back.
“The moat alone is worth the trip. You cross it and suddenly everything feels about four centuries quieter.”
All of this on the doorstep, and your own thatched cottage to come home to. Sleeps seven, less than a mile from Soho Farmhouse.