Nunney Castle

Nunney is only about fourteen miles from my home, so it takes about 20 to 25 minutes to drive there.  I've driven past the turning to the village hundreds of times but have never actually been to the village itself.  Until yesterday!  This is my year for catching up on all the local touristy things that I keep saying I want to do, but never actually get round to.  Please tell me I'm not the only one who does this ... do you all have local places you've never visited before?

 

I wanted to visit Nunney to see the castle which is maintained by English Heritage.  It's a moated castle originally build in the 1370s and which was besieged for two days during the Civil War when it eventually fell to the Parliamentarian forces under the leadership of Thomas Fairfax. I can remember learning all about it at school but surprisingly it's not one of the castle we were taken to see; they were probably worried of losing one of us in the moat - apparently it's quite deep!  

 

I hadn't expected the castle to actually be in the village, so that was a surprise to start with.  Unfortunately, as this was spur of the moment visit, I didn't have the correct camera with me so there aren't any photos of the entire building. It's surrounded by other buildings so I'm not sure that it is possible to get the shot I'd like but, now I've seen how pretty the village is, I will go back to try for some better photos.

 

Anyway, here's the castle ...

 
with it's 19th century graffiti! ....

I looked around the church but didn't take any photos as there was an old lady praying and it seemed intrusive and disrespectful to disturb her by taking lots of photos.  It's Grade 1 listed and very interesting, so it's another reason to go back!

 

I then went back to the castle but got side-tracked and took rather a lot of photos for the next Street Plants post, so to finish, here's a few of the flowers I saw when I was wandering around looking for ornate door knockers.