Dunster
Dunster is one of the most attractive and most completely realised medieval small towns in Somerset, a settlement in the Vale of Porlock below Exmoor whose combination of the castle on the hill above, the octagonal Yarn Market in the broad main street, the medieval priory church and the working watermill creates one of the most complete and most visually rewarding historical townscapes in the southwest. The castle, the market and the mill are all managed by the National Trust and the combination of these three properties in a single visit provides an excellent introduction to the medieval economic, social and defensive life of a Somerset market town.
Dunster Castle occupies a commanding hill above the village and the combination of its medieval origins and its seventeenth-century domestic conversion into a comfortable country house creates an interior of considerable interest and quality. The plaster ceilings, the carved staircase and the leather wall hangings of the principal rooms reflect the domestic ambitions of the Luttrell family who occupied the castle for six centuries, and the National Trust has preserved these interiors with exceptional care.
The Yarn Market of 1609, an octagonal market building in the middle of the High Street, is one of the finest surviving examples of a medieval market building in England and provides the visual centrepiece of the town's historic streetscape. The watermill below the castle, the last working watermill in Somerset, produces stoneground flour that is sold in the mill shop.