Day Trip: Broughton Castle

On the Tuesday after our Stratford trip we took a relatively short drive to Broughton Castle. It is not so much of a castle as a really old, really large house, but we were told that it is a castle because it has a turret. So for anyone out there looking to build a castle keep that in mind. The first thing that I noticed about Broughton Castle is that it seemed colder inside then it was outside. The place seemed like a refrigerator. I feel bad for the people that would have lived there a long time ago.

In the first large room the lady let us try on some of the armor. I don't remember the exact year that it was from, but the helmet was neat and I got to hold a sword. I think the sword was a little bit newer than the armor, but still old. It seems like it would have been tough wearing all of the armor because the sword alone seemed pretty heavy.

The other day Beth and I were watching Shakespeare in Love and noticed quite a few of the scenes that were set in Broughton Castle. I think it made me enjoy the movie more because I could recognize the places as being places that I had just recently been standing on.

We were lucky and ran into Lord Saye at the end of the tour. He offered us tea, but we were running behind schedule and had to meet some other people for lunch. It would have been neat to have tea with him. One of the rooms that we were in had a bed from 1990-something which was funny because you would expect it to be really old. Broughton Castle was one of the most enjoyable places that we visited in my opinion because there was a mix of new and old.