Dunster Castle Castle and most of its contents to the National Trust, which operates it as a tourist attraction. It is a Grade I listed building and scheduled monument. Dunster Castle was positioned on a steep, high hill, sometimes called the Tor, overlooking the village of Dunster in Somerset. During the early medieval period the sea reached the base of the hill, close to the mouth of the River Avill, offering a natural defence and making the village an inland port. Several Iron Age hillforts were built close to Dunster, including Bat's Castle, Black Ball Camp and Grabbist Hill, but the earliest
Dunster Castle ran up new debts, and the castle was handed over into the control of a receiver. Henry Fownes Luttrell, who married Margaret, Alexander's daughter, and took the Luttrell name, moved to Dunster in 1747. The couple redesigned and redecorated the castle in a Rococo style, including the extensive use of the recently invented and highly fashionable wallpaper. Henry Luttrell raised the ground height of the Lower Ward between 1764 and 1765 to extend the New Way all around to the front of his mansion, adding additional ornamental towers onto the inside of the Great Gatehouse in the process. A folly,