Dunster Castle motte, or Upper Ward, and an area below shaped to form the bailey, or Lower Ward. Somerset became more stable in the aftermath of the post-invasion period and the unsuccessful 1068 rebellion against Norman rule. It was common in the period for the Normans to build religious houses to accompany major castles, and accordingly William de Mohun endowed a Benedictine priory at Dunster in 1090, along with its parent abbey at Bath. The River Avill was important for trade; the region around Dunster was rich with fisheries and vineyards, and Dunster Castle prospered. Stone fortifications were built on the site
Feudal barony of Dunster (born 1932). Julian Fownes Luttrell (born 1932), younger brother, living in 2015, who rents from the Crown Estate the Home Farm of Dunster Castle with 330 acres situated below the Castle Tor, and lives nearby at Thorncombe, at the foot of the Quantocks. He did not fully agree with his elder brother's decision to donate the estate to the National Trust, "but didn't question the right that the castle belonged to him". In 1956 he was a joint founder, with his former army comrade Sir Neville Bowman-Shaw (a Deputy Lieutenant for Bedfordshire, knighted by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for exports),