Nunney Castle: A Medieval Tower-Keep in Somerset
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- English
- Site type
- Military
- Remains
- Castle
On this page10 sections
History
Nunney Castle is a medieval castle in England, United Kingdom, built in the late fourteenth century by Sir John Delamare, an English soldier and landowner who gained wealth during the Hundred Years’ War, the prolonged series of conflicts between England and France. It replaced an existing unfortified manor house and became a substantial fortified residence. The castle’s later history includes aristocratic ownership, Catholic occupation, Civil War resistance, and restoration after centuries of decline.
Delamare and the medieval castle
In 1373, Delamare received a licence to crenellate from Edward III, meaning royal permission to add battlements and other defensive works. He then began replacing the manor house with a stone castle centred on a tower-keep, a substantial tower combining residential and defensive purposes. The design has prompted continuing debate. Some earlier interpretations stressed French influence and compared Nunney with the Bastille, a major fortified gate and prison in Paris that formed part of the city’s medieval defenses. More recent interpretations find no direct proof of imitation and place the castle within a wider English tradition of tower-keeps built as luxurious residences for wealthy owners.
Nunney passed from John Delamare to his son Philip and then to his grandson Elias. Elias probably died during the campaigns in France led by Henry V, the English king who ruled from 1413 to 1422. The castle subsequently passed through marriage to the Poulet family. John Poulet, his son John, and his grandson John held Nunney for much of the fifteenth century, although their principal home was Basing Castle in Hampshire.
Sixteenth-century remodelling
William Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, was the last member of the Poulet family to own Nunney. After his death in 1572, the castle changed hands several times. Swithun Thorpe sold it to John Parker in 1577, and Parker sold it to Richard Prater the following year for £2,000.
The castle was altered during the second half of the sixteenth century, probably under the Prater family. Larger windows, a grand staircase, a Catholic altar, and a terrace along the inner side of the moat changed both its domestic character and its appearance. These works reflect the continued use of Nunney as a residence rather than simply as a medieval stronghold.
The Civil War siege
Nunney remained with the Roman Catholic Prater family during the seventeenth century. When the English Civil War began in 1642, a conflict between supporters of Charles I and Parliament, Colonel Richard Prater supported the king. As the Royalist position weakened, the south-west became one of the remaining Royalist strongholds. Nunney was garrisoned and sheltered refugees, including many Catholics.
On 18 September 1645, two Parliamentary regiments surrounded the castle with cannon. Their commanders were Lord Fairfax, a senior Parliamentary leader, and Oliver Cromwell, a prominent Parliamentary military and political figure. Prater refused to surrender, and cannon fire breached the north side of the castle. He continued the defense while displaying a flag with a Catholic crucifix, but the garrison capitulated two days later.
The artillery damage spared Nunney from the deliberate slighting carried out at many other castles after the war. Slighting meant damaging a fortified building so that it could not be used again for military purposes. Richard Prater was forbidden to return, while his son George recovered the castle from its interim owners only after Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660.
Decline and protection
The Prater family sold the declining castle to William Whitchurch around 1700. It remained in reasonably good condition during the eighteenth century. In 1789, an order prepared Nunney to receive French prisoners, although they probably never arrived.
By the twentieth century, the castle had become increasingly ruinous and was covered in thick ivy. On 25 December 1910, part of the damaged north wall collapsed, and most of the fallen stone was believed to have been taken by local residents. In 1926, the owner, Robert Baily-Neale, transferred the property to the Commissioner of Works because its fabric was threatened. A restoration programme followed, and English Heritage now maintains and manages the castle. Nunney is protected as a scheduled monument, a legally protected archaeological or historic site. Architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner regarded it as the most aesthetically impressive castle in Somerset.
Remains
The tower-keep
The surviving castle is organized around a stone tower-keep measuring 60 by 24 feet, or 18 by 7 metres, internally. It rises 54 feet, or 16 metres, and its walls are about 8 feet, or 2.4 metres, thick. The masonry is Lias Oolite ashlar, finely dressed local limestone laid in regular courses. The keep was planned with approximately three floors and four round corner towers. Each corner tower had a conical roof and prominent machicolations, projecting parapets with openings through which defenders could attack people below.
The ground floor contained the kitchen and other service rooms. The uses of the first and second floors remain uncertain. One interpretation places further service space on the first floor and the hall on the second; another places the hall on the first floor and living accommodation on the second. A minority view identifies the first floor as an armoury. The third floor provided living accommodation for the owning family. The original upper levels contained several windows and fireplaces, although the hall was relatively dark and the stairways were unusually narrow.
Moat and outer defenses
A modest entrance led into the keep by way of a drawbridge over the surrounding moat. The moat originally reached the base of the castle. Around it ran a simple bailey wall, about 12 feet, or 3.6 metres, high. A bailey is an enclosed area beside or around a castle’s principal keep. This wall offered limited defensive strength, while the moat itself was about 10 feet, or 3 metres, deep and difficult for attackers to drain. On the eastern side, Nunney Brook formed the defensive boundary instead of a bailey wall.
Later domestic alterations
The sixteenth-century remodelling enlarged the windows and added a grand staircase inside one of the towers. It also introduced a Catholic altar and an inner revetment, a retaining facing or supporting terrace, along the moat. This terrace reduced the moat’s width to about 25 feet, or 7.6 metres. The alterations survive as part of the castle’s later residential character and show how the building was adapted after its medieval construction.
Damage and surviving fabric
Nunney’s architectural comparisons include French fortifications, especially in its use of machicolations, but similar arrangements also appear at English castles such as Mulgrave and Dudley. Herstmonceux and Saltwood Castle provide broader English comparisons. The castle is now ruined. Cannon fire during the Civil War damaged the north side, and another section collapsed in 1910. The remaining fabric was later placed under a restoration programme, preserving the surviving keep, towers, moat, and associated defensive features as a connected historic structure.
