Henry Dunster (MP) Henry Dunster (MP) Henry Dunster (1618 – 29 July 1684) was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1679. Dunster was the son of Giles Dunster, yeoman, of Seavington St. Michael, Somerset and was baptised on 6 September 1618. He was apprenticed to a grocer in London in 1636, and became a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Grocers in 1644. He does not appear to have taken part in the Civil War. By 1652 he owned 52 acres in Ilchester and was elected to the corporation. In 1660, he was elected
Dunster Castle a keen historian, decided to follow this trend at Dunster; in the process, he also hoped to accommodate the larger household and facilities required for a 19th-century landowner: by 1881, the castle required 15 "living-in" servants alone. He employed Anthony Salvin, a noted architect then most famous for his work at Alnwick Castle, to carry out the work between 1868 and 1872 at a total cost of £25,350 (equivalent to £1.76 million in 2010). The work included the construction of an underground reservoir, holding of water to provide running water for the castle and village. Salvin aimed to create a