The exact location of the Forza Horizon 4 Broadway Windmill - and it isn't where you'd expect
If you’re one of the 24 million players who engaged in automotive carnage on the Xbox game Forza Horizon 4, you’d know how much of a treat it was to have an open world driving game set in the UK. There have been a few but they’ve been sparse.
The original Midnight Club, the original Midtown Madness, Watch Dogs: Legion, and The Italian Job were all set in condensed versions of London. One major exception was The Getaway series, with a fantastically detailed setting featuring realistic cars and recognisable streets and shop fronts.
However, Forza Horizon 4 was the first game to take that to the British countryside and what a treat that was. Narrow lanes, small villages, hedge rows, and motorway gantries - all waiting for you to power slide your virtual vehicle into at 100mph.
READ MORE: 17 Video games you loved to play that were made right here in Warwickshire
In Warwickshire, one of the biggest landmarks in the game is hidden away just outside Leamington Spa. But you wouldn’t know it.
In the game, it has a location marked “Broadway Windmill”, just outside a recreation of the Cotswold village of Broadway. However, the real one is actually Chesterton Windmill, just over 40 miles northeast of Broadway.
The 15th century windmill is a beautiful lone structure that towers over the rolling hills of South Warwickshire. Built by landowner Edward Peyto for his now-demolished stately home Chesterton House, it is an ideal place to escape the rush of modern life and immerse oneself in bucolic Constable-esque English vistas.
That all said, it was hard to escape the memories of flinging a Porsche 918 Spyder through the middle of it to earn my weekly challenge. I was almost expecting to see someone come barrelling through the hedges and across the fields to perform some cartoonish stunt through the windmill.
Thank goodness for the narrow arches on the windmill that wouldn't fit a vehicle, and the general sense of self preservation we all share. But after all, when you dig into it, it’s unsurprising why this location was chosen.
About 20 mins down the road is Playground Games HQ - the makers of the Forza Horizon series. While they hid this Warwickshire icon conspicuously in the game, it’s a lovely nod to the corner of the country the Forza Horizon team call home.