Dunster Dunster Dunster is a village, civil parish and former manor within the English county of Somerset, today just within the north-eastern boundary of the Exmoor National Park. It lies on the Bristol Channel coast south-southeast of Minehead and northwest of Taunton. The United Kingdom Census of 2011 recorded a parish population of 817. Iron Age hillforts testify to occupation of the area for thousands of years. The village grew up around Dunster Castle which was built on the Tor by the Norman warrior William I de Moyon (d. post 1090) shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066. The Castle is
Dunster Castle including the south-west. In the case of Dunster, Thomas's son George Luttrell was able to convince the authorities to destroy only the medieval defensive walls, rather than the entire castle, leaving Dunster damaged from the recent siege but still habitable; the walls were demolished over 12 days in August 1650 by a team of 300 workmen. The only parts of the medieval walls to survive were the Great Gatehouse and the bases of the two towers in the Lower Ward. George Luttrell died without children, and Dunster Castle passed to his brother Francis, who survived the political turmoil of both