The nineteen sixties development Broughton Close is, like many of its near neighbours, named after a British castle – Broughton Castle near Banbury in Oxfordshire. The castle is an excellent example of a late medieval mansion, enhanced by Tudor architects, but unspoiled by any later alterations. The exterior of the building was completed by 1554, at the start of Queen Mary’s reign, while the interior dates from the end of the sixteenth century.
Homes to the Fiennes family, the Lords of Saye and Sele, Broughton Castle has strong links with the Parliamentarian cause during the Civil War and is now open to the public and in better condition than it has been for over 200 years.
The title Saye and Sele dates from creation of the Barony in 1447 and the family name Fiennes (pronounced Fines), is the name of a village in Artois in northern France. The present Lord Saye and Sele is the twenty-first Baron and the wider family includes brothers Ralph (the English Patient) and Jospeh Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love), the actors, Sir Ranulph, the explorer (who lives in Devon) and Celia, who travelled around England on horseback in the seventeenth century and visited Plymouth, her published chronicles were later published and are the work of a remarkable woman ahead of her time.
