Of ancient mansions still inhabited at the start of the 20th century, the finest is Broughton Castle near Banbury, dating from 1301. Others are Shirburn Castle, begun in 1377, but mainly Perpendicular of the next century; Stanton Harcourt, dating from 1450, with a gatehouse of 1540, a vast kitchen, and Pope's Tower, named from the poet, who stayed here more than once. Mapledurham, on the Thames above Reading, is a fine Tudor mansion of brick; and Water Eaton, on the Cherwell above Oxford, is a singularly perfect Jacobean house of stone, with a chapel of the same period resembling pure Perpendicular.
