Visiting Dunster Castle
Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post,
As some of you would have already seen, if you follow me on Instagram, me and my family went on holiday to Somerset. We're staying in a cute little bungalow in the Somerset countryside for two weeks! This means that we have plenty of time to visit some cool places. One of the cool places we have already visited is Dunster Castle, which is near to where we are staying. As a history lover, I was really looking forward to visiting some historical sites and Dunster Castle seemed like the perfect place for me. Today I'm going to tell you all about my visit!
Dunster Castle is a former motte and bailey castle that dates back to the Anglo-Saxon era. When I visited the castle, I could tell that it was a classic motte and bailey castle because it was located on top of a hill, in the middle of the village of Dunster and it had a wall encircling the main building.
For a castle as old as it was, it was also extremely well kept. The rooms were tidy and the gardens looked emmaculate. When I visited some equally impressive castles in France they were not as well kept as the castles in Britain. Thankfully in the UK, these historic sites are supported by the National Trust which means that a group of volunteers work around the clock to keep up with the maintainance of these places. Outside of the castle, there were beautiful flowers bordering the path. I had to take some photos!
The first room we visited in the castle was the day room. It looked very pretty as it had these beautiful benches with a marble table in the middle and an oriental cabinet in the corner of the room.
The second room we visited in the castle was the dining room. It had a large table in the centre of room with a fireplace and paintings on the walls. Next to the dining room was the kitchen. One part of the kitchen was decorated to show how it would have looked in the Victorian times and the other part was decorated in the 1960s style. As Dunster Castle was inhabited by people up until the late 20th century, the rooms had been restyled as the years went by. It was cool to see the victorian kitchen with the old wooden surfaces in contrast to the 1960s kitchen which had the fitted worktops.
Here is a photo of some of the people that lived in Dunster Castle.
After visiting the kitchens, we also looked at some of the bedrooms, even the one that Richard III had slept in himself. I always like looking at the bedrooms because the beds always look so much smaller than ours. I think that's just because at the time, people slept upright instead of lying down so they didn't really need the beds to be that long. 😂 Still, the rooms looked very nice. We also saw the toilet which wasn't as interesting. 😂😂
In another part of the castle, there was a room where all the legal documents were kept. The castle also kept letters in that room from the children in the nearby primary school, where they asked them to describe what they thought living in a castle would be like. I thought that was a really sweet gesture. I could just imagine myself being really excited to get involved in something like that when I was in primary school too.
Fun fact: Women in the Victorian times used to change outfits 12 times a day when they were at house parties! They would basically spend the whole day getting dressed. 😂😂
After a brief viewing of the games room, the next room we saw was the evening room. Similar to the day room, this room had some chairs, sofas, and a table with paintings encircling the room. However, what I liked the most about the evening room was that there was an entire taken up by a bookshelf that was filled with books. Obviously, I wasn't allowed to touch anything but one day I would like to pick up one of those old books and see what it's like to read. I think that it's so nice to have a room that is dedicated to books. When I leave home, I hope to have a library in my house to keep all of my favourite books.
After visiting the evening room, we saw the conservatory that was filled with plants. This was the room that you could see through the bay window at the front of the castle. I liked this room because it had lots of tropical plants in it that reminded me of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean, where my family is from.
The last area of the castle that we visited was the crypt. If you don't know what a crypt is it's an underground room where dead bodies were kept. I know, it's spooky! If you've watched Merlin before, the crypt in Camelot would have been the area where the tombs of the Kings were kept, near to the Great Dragon's cave. This crypt just had some empty barrels in it but I didn't stay there too long because I don't like the dark! 😂😂💜
The last thing we did was visit the water mill that was at the bottom of the castle. It had a beautiful stream flowing beside it that I took lots of photos of! What I liked most about the water mill was that there were people there who were still making and selling flour from the mill. We didn't buy any of it but if I lived in Dunster, I think that I would go there to get my flour.
To finish our day off, we went to a nearby countryside shop to get some pasties for lunch. They were delicious!
What castles/historical sites have you visited before? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!
See you next time,
Bye,
XOX, Juliette
P.S. You can watch my latest dance video here! A new one is coming out tomorrow too!
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