In the medieval period venison was one of the most common meats eaten by the gentry and in order lo provide a regular supply small deer parks were created near many big houses and served as 'living larders'. For more than 800 years until fairly recently, deer were 'managed' in this part of West Somerset by means of deer parks.
When needed for food, a deer would he driven by beaters through a line of practised archers whose job il was to kill the chosen animal. Few parks were large enough for recreational hunting. For that one would need a forest - like Exmoor.
Dunster Deer Park as we know il today is a relatively recent creation, the upper and larger part of it dating from about the middle of the eighteenth century though there has been a park attached to Dunster Castle from the time of the de Mohuns, some 700 years ago.
Originally it appears to have contained a vineyard and fishponds and was described in 1279 as 'a small park' - about 72 acres. In 1350 it is referred lo as the Hanger Park and we know thai it sloped from the backs of the houses on the east or seaward side of Dunster High Street, down towards Ihe River Avill and Ihe level ground now known as Ihe Castle Lawns. Soon after it seems lo have been extended - in 1366 a 'new park' was recorded on the other side of the river.
Dunster Deer Park
In 1404 Sir Hugh Luttrell - the first of that family lo live at Dunster Castle - grubbed up the vineyard which was situated on the sunny slope behind the Luttrell Arms Hotel and turned it into pasture within the park. In 1417 he paid Philip the Carpenter and his mate 18s 4d lo cut stakes to enclose the fishponds inside the Hanger Park.
These fishponds provided a ready supply of fish for the caslle and we know that they were re-stocked in 1420 wilh live fish from Bridgwatcr at a cost of 3s 9d and again in 1423 with fish from Woolavington costing 4s.
At Sir Hugh's death the Hanger Park comprised some 100 acres of pasture and woodland.
The Hanger Park was just one of several parks owned by the Luttrells at the lime. There was one of about 100 acres on their Quantock estate at East Quantoxhead; another in Minehead that grew in size from 5I acres in 1383 to 150 acres in 1428 and 200 acresby 1551.
There was also one at Kilton and another at Marshwood. Blue Anchor, of about 100 acres which, in 1553, is said to have contained 100 deer.
In the late sixteenth century George Luttrelll seems to have had quite a few problems wilh his park deer, judging by the cases of illegal hunting and poaching thai came before the Court of Star Chamber during Queen Elizabeth's reign.
It sounds as if Ihere were plenty of deer in the park at that time but evidently, by the first half of Ihe eighteenth century, numbers had dropped. When Henry Fownes married Margaret Luttrell in 1747 (and added the Luttrell name lo his own) he came to Dunsler with plans to up-grade Ihe castle and gardens as a more appropriate setting for an eighteenth-century gentleman and his bride.
As time went by he gradually landscaped Ihe grounds, building a picturesque rocky-cascade, Gothic-style bridges over the River Avill and planting yews, cypress, conifers and flowering shrubs in the gardens.
Dunster Der Park with Dunster Castle scaffolded and covered
Artificial ruins and a folly were built on Conygar Hill. Henry and his wife also decided to build a new ornamental deer park and this decision coincided with other plans lo rationalise the farms on the estate, amalgamating smaller units and developing larger ones.
The site for Ihe new park lay lo Ihe south of the Hanger Park and Ihe Lawns on higher ground. Various plots of freehold farmland were purchased; other plots belonging to Ihe estate were taken in hand and tenants given notice to quit; hedges were done away wilh and a continuous fence constructed to enclose Ihe whole of Ihe new area, some 348 acres. Full details of this new fence survive including the estimate for the nails thai would be needed - 22,720 'if none be lost'.
The transfer of the deer from Marshwood lo the new park took place in 1756. A direct route two miles long between the two parks was prepared by culling gaps through intervening fences and a large number of local villagers turned oui to help drive the deer straight to their new home and lo keep them from straying lo either lefl or right..
Would they have been so eager to help if they had realised thai soon the economy of Carhampton would be turned upside down? Round about 1790 Edmund Raek in a survey wrote: 'The parish contains 70 houses but a full third of them are void and tumbling to ruins.' He attributes this 'desolation' lo the fact that J.F. Lutlrell would 'grant no leases' - the village was in the grip of enclosure.
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