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History etched in honey-coloured stone
The rich heritage and sumptuous interiors of these stately homes tucked away in the picture-perfect Cotswolds are revealed by Jeremy Musson and Hugo Rittson Thomas
The beautiful rolling hills and grassland of the Cotswolds straddling Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire are the essence of England, dotted with pretty villages and stately homes made from local honeycoloured stone. A wealthy area in the medieval, Tudor and Stuart periods, the Cotswolds were less prosperous in the 18th and 19th centuries, thus preserving the strong rural character.
Today the area is fashionable again, its old houses with their feeling of solidity and survival much sought after as country retreats. But what secrets do they hold? In their new book, architectural historian Jeremy Musson and photographer Hugo Rittson Thomas take us on a tour of the area’s most fascinating properties, ranging from castles to cosy family homes. Here are some of the best... Approached through a battlemented gatehouse, Broughton Castle seems too good to be true. A massive slab of a house on its square moated island, it appears like a magical picture from a history book – little wonder it’s appeared in such gems as Shakespeare In Love and Wolf Hall.
Broughton is currently occupied by Martin Fiennes and has been the home of his ancient and far-flung family since 1448. Modern members include actor brothers Ralph and Joseph Fiennes – who, aptly, starred in Shakespeare In Love – and explorer Ranulph, Martin’s second and third cousins respectively.
Built from warm local stone, the house’s history encompasses a slow evolution from a fortress to a house of mellow beauty. As Martin dreamily observes, ‘On a summer evening, there is no more beautiful room than the Oak Room, with its door open to the garden – a scent of roses drifting in on the warm air.’
The original residence was completed for John de Broughton, who died in 1315. It had a great hall with apartments at one end, where the family could gather privately, and a chapel that still survives at the head of worn stone steps.
By 1377, the castle was acquired by the Bishop of Winchester. Major remodelling work in the 16th century was carried out by Richard Fiennes, perhaps with money from his marriage to Ursula Fermor, daughter of a wealthy London merchant. It was then visited by Queen Elizabeth in 1566. During the Civil War, though, it hit troubled times: a Roundhead stronghold, it was besieged and surrendered to Royalist troops in 1642. In the 1690s the diarist Celia Fiennes wrote gloomily of how it was ‘much left to decay and ruin’.
Richard Fiennes had created one long, tall house and updated the interiors too, with a new series of domestic apartments on the top floor. Even today the house is light and spacious, with a long gallery where the family could walk and talk in wet weather and a parlour and great chamber with plasterwork ceilings. The parlour, known as the Oak Room, remains the family’s favourite room.
One of the finest features of the house is a glorious ornate chimneypiece, now in the room called the King’s Cham- ber, so named because James I stayed there in 1604 and Edward VII slept there in 1901, when Prince Of Wales. The overmantel shows a vivid scene of nymphs dancing around an oak tree and some believe it came from Henry VIII’s Surrey Palace, Nonsuch.
In 1837, much of the castle’s contents were sold to help pay the debts of the spendthrift 15th Lord Saye and Sele (the title the family has held for centuries). Broughton was then inherited in 1847 by a cousin, Frederick, Archdeacon of Hereford, who used the architect George Gilbert Scott to restore the house. Martin says, ‘He is known in the family as “Good Frederick” and introduced the Chinese wallpaper in the King’s Bedroom, while his heir “Bad John” spent all his money on the horses.’ The costs of restoration, and the 19th-century agricultural
slump, meant the house was rented out from 1886 to 1912. One tenant, Lady Algernon Gordon Lennox, seems to have been responsible for the stripping of the panelling and plaster from the walls of the great hall.
The present Lord Saye and Sele (the 21st) Nathaniel Fiennes, 97, and his wife Mariette took the house on in 1968 and raised their family there. Martin recalls, ‘My earliest memories are of a formal tea with my grandparents here.’ As they opened the house more to the public in the 1970s, the family converted part of the eastern end into their private accommodation. The film work has allowed further investment in furniture and carpets.
Martin is also enjoying digging forgotten 19th-century paintings out of the attic and putting them back on the walls, and has restored some 30 pic- tures so far. ‘This is not really a castle but a part-fortified manor house, which nonetheless makes it an alpha male among the Tudor English mansions – but it also has an unexpected beauty,’ he says. ‘In the evening, the north Oxfordshire ironstone glows with a rusty gold and everything suddenly takes on a magical air.’
UEEN KATHERINE PARR’S COUNTRY IDYLL OVERLEAF