Dunster a loud drum. The hobby horse dances its way about the town and on to Dunster Castle. Annually on the third Friday in August the village hosts the well known Dunster Show where local businesses and producers come together to showcase the very best that Exmoor and West Somerset has to offer. A major part of the show is the showing of livestock especially horses, cattle and sheep.The 2015 show was the 169th show. A more recent tradition (started in 1987) is Dunster by Candlelight which takes place every year on the first Friday and Saturday in December when this
Dunster Castle and Colonel Robert Blake led a Parliamentary force against Dunster in October. In November Blake began his siege of the castle, setting up his artillery in Dunster village and starting to dig tunnels to plant mines beneath the walls. The castle was briefly relieved by reinforcements in February 1646, but the siege was resumed and by April the Royalists situation was untenable – an honourable surrender was negotiated and a Parliamentary garrison installed. After the end of the Second English Civil War in 1649, however, Parliament decided to deliberately destroy, or slight, the defences of castles in key Royalist areas,