The Folks who live on the Hill.........

Today the weather has been absolutely glorious so we took our friends from Hampshire over to Dunster to look around the amazing little shops and cafes and we ended up at the Luttrel Arms which is a very old Hotel. We sat in their newly restored garden which is in the only place I know where you go inside and up the stairs to sit in the garden. Although you could still the castle on the hill I decided to photograph it from the street.

Dunster Castle is a former motte and bailey castle, now a country house, in the village of Dunster, Somerset, England. The castle lies on the top of a steep hill called the Tor, and has been fortified since the late Anglo-Saxon period. After the Norman conquest of England in the 11th century, William de Mohun constructed a timber castle on the site as part of the pacification of Somerset. A stone shell keep was built on the motte by the start of the 12th century, and the castle survived a siege during the early years of the Anarchy. At the end of the 14th century the de Mohuns sold the castle to the Luttrell family, who continued to occupy the property until the late 20th century.

The castle was expanded several times by the Luttrell family during the 17th and 18th centuries; they built a large manor house within the Lower Ward of the castle in 1617, and this was extensively modernised, first during the 1680s and then during the 1760s. The medieval castle walls were mostly destroyed following the siege of Dunster Castle at the end of the English Civil War, when Parliament ordered the defences to be slighted to prevent their further use. In the 1860s and 1870s, the architect Anthony Salvin was employed to remodel the castle to fit Victorian tastes; this work extensively changed the appearance of Dunster to make it appear more Gothic and Picturesque.

Following the death of Alexander Luttrell in 1944, the family was unable to afford the death duties on his estate. The castle and surrounding lands were sold off to a property firm, the family continuing to live in the castle as tenants. The Luttrells bought back the castle in 1954, but in 1976 Colonel Walter Luttrell gave Dunster Castle and most of its contents to the National Trust, which operates it as a tourist attraction. It is a Grade I listed building and scheduled monument.

That is just a part of the history and there is much more but I thought by now you might be getting bored.

We came home had an alfresco lunch with home made soda bread, olives and cheeses, followed by Pimms and you can guess what happened after that.
This evening we've had an amazing meal at The Willow Tree in Taunton. If you ever come over this way, I can thoroughly recommend this lovely romantic, superb restaurant serving delicious food.

So goodnight one and all and keep enjoying this wonderful sunshine. Thankyou for dropping in again and taking a part in my life story.