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Castles in Somerset "ABCDE"
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| William de Briwerre was licensed to build a castle at Bridgwater in c
1200. It appears to have been a rectangular enclosure. There is part of
a water-gate beside the River Parrett in the town. During the Civil War
Bridgwater Castle was fortified by the Royalists but, nevertheless, fell
to the Parliamentarians. |
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| There are remains of the foundations of a substantial great tower at
Castle Cary, which had been built of rubble with ashlar facing. The
tower, almost square in plan, was about 78ft wide, and appears to have
been enclosed within banks and moat, some of the banks being of later
date. The great tower had a cross-wall. Dating is difficult, but there
is mention of the castle in the time of Stephen. The tower may be of
Henry II's time. |
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| A mound at Crewkerne, known as Castle Hill, may have been a Norman
motte castle. Excavations revealed some twelfth century pottery which
has been taken to Taunton Museum. |
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| The present imposing fortified manor house known as Dunster Castle is
a replacement of an earlier Norman earthwork castle which may be the
same as that of Torre mentioned in the Domesday Book. There are no
remains of the earlier work except for a mound, scarped out of a natural
hill, and we do not know if it ever received stonework. The castle of
today began as a fortified manor house in the 14th century. It came into
the possession of the Luttrell family, famous for the Luttrel Psalter
in the British Museam (which has many revealing pictures of everyday
life in fourteenth and fifteenth century England), and which has owned
the castle ever since. It was besieged during the Civil War when its
governor surrendered it to Parliament in 1646. It was restored by Salvin
in the nineteenth century. |
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