A Bike Ride to Nunney Castle

Now that Gordy has moved to Somerset, I’m popping out rather a lot on research trips to top up my knowledge of the area and get some inspiration.

So, yesterday afternoon, I hopped aboard my trusty steed and pedalled off for exciting adventures in the sunshine. As usually happens, after a few minutes of sunshine, it started pouring down, and within a few minutes I was soaked to the skin. But, determined, I pedalled on, and lo and behold! The rain cleared and the sun came out again. Hurrah!

Somerset looks amazing like this! Thick hedgerows soaked with rain, yellow sunshine and lush green fields. It’s not the Dales but, in a very different way, it’s as beautiful!

I passed through Mells on a road called Murder Combe, which is possibly the coolest name for a road for a crime writer to cycle along! But there are others too, like Hatchet Hill and Dead Woman’s Corner. I managed to avoid the double temptation of the Mells café and the Talbot Inn (but only just), and passing Mells Park - where the Robin of Sherwood TV series was filmed - I turned towards Chantry and headed for the village of Nunney, somewhere I’ve visited a few times before, but never as a possible location for (fictional) murder ...

                                            

The castle has been here since 1373 (that’s 651 years by my reckoning!), built by John de la Mare, a soldier serving in the Hundred Years War in France. And it does have a bit of a French look about it, with rounded towers in each corner and a proper, honest to goodness moat - with a drawbridge! (now a wooden footbridge).

Apparently the moat used to go right up to the castle walls (which is very Robin Hood-esque too, don’t you think?) but now there’s a grass buffer. Which is probably safer with clumsy folks like me wandering about.

The kitchen was on the ground level, pretty obvious from the gigantic fireplaces. The staircases in the towers are still visible and, even in the daytime, it feels pretty dark, damp and spooky. Stand in any of the towers, and it’s all too easy to imagine a blood curdling scream from above…

In the late 16th century, the castle was bought by one Richard Prater – a rich Londoner buying up property in Somerset. I thought this was a recent phenomenon, but apparently it started 400 years ago! Anyway, things didn’t turn out so well for Mr Prater as the castle was besieged in 1645 during the Civil War by Messrs Fairfax and Cromwell, who persuaded Mr Prater to leave quietly, by blowing up one of the towers with a cannon.

After that, a lot the rooms would have felt quite draughty, so no-one lived in Nunney Castle for the next 250 years. Then on Christmas Day 1910, the north wall collapsed. Plucky locals thought this was a Christmas gift and took all the loose stone to upgrade their houses with.

It's now looked after by English Heritage. What I love about that – and am truly grateful for – is that the castle and its surroundings are completely free of charge. Too often amazing places get locked away from the casual visitor, and so I take my hat off to English Heritage and hope Nunney Castle can stay this way.

With my hat back on, I almost managed to head back home, but then I spotted The George, an 18th century coaching inn. Suitably dried off after my look around Nunney Castle, I nipped in for a bit of light refreshment. The ale is very good here – a nice pint of Wadworth’s 6X, and a table outside overlooking the castle, set me up nicely for the ride home.


One final, interesting and rather gruesome Nunney fact: an iron bar that runs from the pub to the house over the road is said to be where the traveling judge of times past would pronounce his judgements on criminals, and the guilty would be hung from the iron bar! This place gets more grisly everywhere I look – Gordy is certainly in for an interesting time of it …

Somewhere to hang around outside The George