Meet the two families who have shaped Dunster Castle over eight hundred years from fortress to country house.
Lady Joan de Mohun - The Barefoot Pilgrimage
© National Trust (from Charles Stothard's Monumental Effigies)
The first castle was built by William de Mohun I, a companion-in-arms to William the Conqueror. The de Mohuns were to own Dunster for over 300 years. In 1330, Sir John de Mohun V inherited Dunster and his wife, brave Lady Joan, is still remembered today in the legend of the Barefoot Pilgrimage.
Sir John had a notion of enclosing Dunster Common for his own use. The poor of Dunster asked Joan, who was much loved, if she could change his mind. He eventually said that she could have as much Common land for the poor as she could walk round barefoot on the darkest winter night. The Lady set out that evening and walked until she fell hard on the ground fainting. The lord carried her home in his arms and the men of Dunster kept their Common.
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Lady Elizabeth Luttrell takes charge
© National Trust (from Henry Maxwell Lyte's A History of Dunster)
By 1376 Lady Joan de Mohun was debt-ridden and Dunster Castle was sold to Lady Elizabeth Luttrell for 5,000 marks (£3,333 6s 8d). As Lady Joan retained a life interest in the property, the exchange did not happen for another 30 years.
The Luttrell family motto over the main entrance to the house, 'Gained by strength, held by skill', epitomises their almost continuous occupancy from 1405 for nearly 600 years. With an unbroken lineage since the time of William the Conqueror, their family archives relate a record of land ownership and service throughout the centuries.
George Luttrell (1560 – 1629) - builder of the Jacobean mansion
© courtesy of Col Sir Walter Luttrell
Life was never dull for George Luttrell who inherited the castle in 1571. His grandmother Margaret objected strongly to his proposed marriage to Joan Stewkley, branding her a ‘slutte’ with ‘no good qualities’. The pair only married after Margaret's death. When Joan died, George married Sylvestra Capps. She had a reputation as a harridan and vixen, and George found her 'greedy, unpleasant and vulgar'.
Despite this apparent domestic discord, George set about transforming the castle with a new house. Locally, he built the Yarn Market in Dunster Village and the pier at Minehead. Unfortunately George fell out with his architect for the new house, William Arnold, and refused to pay his fees.
George Fownes Luttrell (1826 – 1910) – builder of the Victorian country manor house
© NTPL / John Hammond
George Fownes Luttrell inherited the castle in 1867. He engaged the architect Antony Salvin in 1868 to modernise the old Jacobean mansion, transforming it into a Victorian country manor house. Salvin added a billiard room, library, conservatory and servants’ domestic quarters.
George Fownes Luttrell helped bring the West Somerset Railway to Minehead and developed the town as a seaside resort.
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