Conygar Tower
Conygar Tower is a striking folly standing on a wooded hilltop just to the northwest of Dunster, a medieval market town in Somerset's Exmoor National Park. Built in 1775 by Henry Fownes Luttrell of the prominent local Luttrell family, the tower was designed purely as a picturesque landscape ornament — a romantic ruin in the making, intended to be admired from the grounds of Dunster Castle and to add theatrical drama to the skyline. It belongs to a great tradition of eighteenth-century follies constructed across Britain by wealthy landowners who wished to embellish their estates with the aesthetic of antiquity. The tower stands approximately 17 metres tall, is circular in plan, and is constructed of local rubble stone that gives it a genuinely antique and weathered character. Though built to look like a ruin from a distance, it is more structurally sound than it appears, and its silhouette — a crenellated crown bristling above the treeline — is one of the most recognisable landmarks in this corner of Somerset.
The Luttrell family were lords of Dunster for centuries, acquiring the manor in 1376 and holding it until the twentieth century when the National Trust took over Dunster Castle in 1976. Henry Fownes Luttrell was an enthusiastic improver of the estate landscape, and the construction of Conygar Tower fits squarely within the Georgian passion for the Picturesque movement, which sought to cultivate views that evoked paintings by Claude Lorrain or Nicolas Poussin — full of ruins, towers, and romantic natural scenery. The tower takes its name from the Conygar Hill on which it stands, the word "conygar" or "coney-garth" being a Middle English term for a rabbit warren, reflecting the medieval use of this hill as a managed warren for producing meat and fur. This etymological trace hints at the long human habitation and land management history of the hill long before the folly was ever conceived.
Approaching the tower on foot from the village of Dunster, visitors climb through a small mixed woodland that provides dappled shade in summer and carpets of fallen leaves in autumn. The path is uneven and moderately steep in places, but the ascent is short. As you emerge from the trees, the tower rises suddenly and dramatically against the open sky. Up close, the stonework is rough and irregular, the mortar weathered between courses of local Somerset sandstone and rubble. The interior of the tower is not reliably accessible to the public, but from its base you can appreciate the sheer scale of the structure and the care put into its apparently artless construction. On a clear day the surrounding views open out beautifully — west toward the Bristol Channel, north across the Vale of Porlock, and south toward the ancient bulk of Dunkery Beacon, Exmoor's highest point. There is a pleasing silence at the summit broken only by birdsong and the distant sounds of the village below: occasionally the ringing of church bells from the Priory of St George, whose tower competes agreeably on the skyline.
Dunster itself is one of the finest small medieval towns in England and makes the visit to Conygar Tower part of a richly rewarding day out. The village retains its octagonal Yarn Market from around 1609, a reminder of the prosperous wool trade that once defined this part of Somerset. Dunster Castle, managed by the National Trust, dominates the town from its own hill and is well worth exploring. The broader landscape is that of Exmoor's western fringe — rolling combes, ancient hedgerows, stands of sessile oak woodland, and the occasional red deer moving across open moorland. Porlock and its famous steep hill are only a few miles to the west, and the dramatic coastline at Porlock Weir offers a complete contrast to the inland village character of Dunster.
Visiting Conygar Tower is free and the hill is accessible year-round via public footpaths from Dunster village. The walk from the village centre takes around fifteen to twenty minutes at a gentle pace. Stout footwear is advisable, particularly after rain when the paths through the woodland can become slippery. There is no admission charge, no facilities at the tower itself, and no formal car park specifically for the hill — visitors typically park in Dunster village where pay-and-display parking is available near the castle. The best times to visit are spring and autumn: in spring the woodland beneath the tower is lively with bluebells and birdsong, while in autumn the turning leaves frame the stone beautifully in gold and amber. Summer is busy in Dunster generally, but the tower itself tends to remain a quieter and more contemplative spot even when the village is crowded.
One of the more charming and unusual facts about Conygar Tower is that it was built to be a ruin from the outset — it was never meant to be habitable or functional in any conventional sense, making it a pure work of landscape theatre. This self-conscious artifice is somewhat paradoxical: the tower is genuinely old now, having stood for two and a half centuries, and has acquired the real weathering and gravitas its designers could only simulate. Local legend does not attach any particularly dramatic supernatural folklore to the tower, but its isolated hilltop position and silhouette against stormy winter skies give it an atmosphere that needs no embellishment. For a small, quiet, and often overlooked corner of England, the combination of Dunster village, the castle, and Conygar Tower constitutes an extraordinarily complete and rewarding heritage landscape.