Hard by is the Luttrell Arms Hotel—a perfect treasure-house of antiquities. These comprise a gabled porch pierced with lancet holes for crossbows, a façade of oak, elaborately carved, and an oak chamber, with an open roof of timber work, somewhat resembling that of Westminster Hall. In Room 13 are emblazoned the Luttrell Arms—or, a bird between three martlets sable. With these are impaled a chevron between three trefoils, slipped, proper.
Says an anonymous writer: “In old times it was the custom of every gentleman to set up his family shield on the house in which he sojourned; this served as a rallying-point to his followers, and, in my opinion, was the origin of the signs formerly displayed on houses of business of every kind, but now confined to inns only.” In the present instance the suggestion is not particularly helpful, as there are reasons for supposing that the building once belonged to the Abbey of Cleeve. Nothing, however, is certainly known of its origin and history, and it is quite possible that it was at one time in the occupation of a cadet of the great family at the castle.
Room No. 12 boasts a far more notable feature—namely, an elaborate mantelpiece bearing two shields, one emblazoned with the arms of England, and the other with those of France; also a poor bust of Shakespeare, two large Elizabethan female figures, and a central medallion showing a prostrate man, nude, and worried by three dogs, clearly intended for Actæon, who was torn to pieces by his hounds for looking on Diana whilst bathing.
The “Luttrell Arms” is mentioned in chapter xxvii. of Lorna Doone, which tells also of Ridd’s mother’s cousin, the tanner, and his bevy of daughters, all resident in the town.
Another architectural curiosity is a weather-tiled house on the north side of Middle Street. This is usually described as “the Nunnery”—a quite modern appellation, born of pure fancy. Even so late as the last century it was known as the “High House,” while a yet older name was the “Tenement of St Lawrence.” Yet another interesting old structure is “Lower Marsh,” with rich Perpendicular oratory over its entrance porch.
Next, as to the church. At the entrance to the churchyard stands a quaint timber building which goes by the name of the Priest’s House. The church itself is a magnificent specimen of its kind, and worthy of the name of a cathedral. The most ancient part of it is the Norman arch at the west end. The east end is Early English, and nearly all the rest Perpendicular, including the old and beautiful rood-screen of open work with fan tracery headings, over which are four rows of ornaments. The portion of the church to the west of the screen is called by the inhabitants the “Parish Church,” while the eastern section is termed the “Priory Church.” The reason is that this was formerly the chapel of the Priory of Dunster, which belonged to the Benedictine monks of Bath; and shortly after the dissolution of the monasteries the priory was acquired by the Luttrells, who have long claimed the part of the church assigned to the monks by the award of the Abbot of Glastonbury and his colleagues, and erected therein a number of funeral monuments, yet remaining, in various states of preservation. To the north-west of the church are the ruins of the priory, the great barn in which the good monks stored their grain, and two great gateways that led into the priory precincts.
Every visitor to Dunster is admonished to make the ascent of Grabhurst (or Grabbist) Hill, on the southern slope of which there was in the Middle Ages a vineyard—not, by the way, a solitary example in the England of that distant time. The view from the summit is extremely beautiful. In the foreground are moors, in the background the sea, and on the right and the left hand towards Minehead and St Audries, varied and charming landscapes. On one side of the ridge may be descried a typical farmhouse, nestling amidst bright, green meadows and clumps of trees; and over the deep, narrow valley towers the massive form of old Dunkery and other heights in shadowy perspective.
Still grander are the prospects to be obtained from Dunkery Beacon itself—the most commanding landmark of the district. About eight miles south of Minehead, Dunkery is a mountain large and high, with a base about twelve miles in circumference and an altitude of 1700 feet. With the exception of Cawsand Beacon, it is the highest summit in the West of England. One approach to it is from Wootton Courtenay, the distance from the parish church to the top of the hill being three miles; another is from Cutcombe, in which parish part of Dunkery lies. The hilly character of the country is well illustrated by the name of the hostelry at the corner, where the road to Dunkery digresses from the “Minehead turnpike”—“Rest and Be Thankful.”
The view from the beacon embraces an immense tract, the sky-line being quite five hundred miles in circumference. To the south-west can be discerned the tors near Plymouth; northwards, the Malvern Hills, in Worcestershire—regions more than two hundred miles apart. North and north-west, nearly a hundred and thirty miles of the Bristol Channel, and behind it the coast of Wales from Monmouthshire to Pembrokeshire. Most of Somerset, Devon, and Dorset, with parts of Wiltshire and Hampshire, are included in a spectacle which premises a clear atmosphere and not too bright a sun, lest the prospect be obscured by haze.
On Dunkery top is a vast quantity of rough, loose stones of all shapes and sizes, and ranging from one pound to two hundred pounds in weight, together with the remains of three large hearths, built of unhewn stones, and about eight feet square. They compose an equilateral triangle, in the interior of which is another and larger hearth. More than two hundred feet lower, on the slope of the hill, and nearly a mile distant, are two other hearths, with the same accompaniment of loose stones scattered in large numbers around. These are undoubtedly ruins of old-world beacons which, in periods of civil commotion or when foreign invasion threatened, were used to rouse the countryside and pass the fiery message from one end of the realm to the other. According to Lorna Doone (chapter iii.), the marauders prevented this legitimate use by throwing a watchman on the top of it. Chapters xliii. and xliv. contain a vivid description of the firing of the actual beacon in Doone Glen.