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 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,