The Luttrell Arms Hotel
“Ancient free house in memorable location” - AA Inspector
DUNSTER, SOMERSET
Our View
Dramatically sited on a wooded hill, Dunster Castle, the Luttrell family home for 600 years until 1976, looks down over the film-set village, where stands the imposing sandstone-built Luttrell Arms, and in the near distance, the Bristol Channel. In the street outside is the early 17th-century, timber-framed, octagonal Yarn Market. One of Britain’s oldest post-houses, it retains its galleried courtyard, fine plasterwork ceiling, stone-mullioned windows, wood-panelled walls and open fireplaces; it was from here that Oliver Cromwell directed the siege of Dunster Castle during the English Civil War. Until the 1950s one would book a table by telephoning Dunster 2; the Luttrells had the pleasure of answering “Dunster 1”. You can see the castle from the inn’s hidden garden; here’s as good a place as any to savour a pint of Exmoor Ale from nearby Wiveliscombe, or Thatchers Cheddar Valley cider, while perusing the menu. The Old Kitchen Bar offers hot ciabattas and sandwiches; chef’s pie of the day; and two types of ploughman’s. In Psalter’s restaurant, the choice is narrower but more sophisticated. Children get to choose from their own menu.
Awards, accolades and Welcome Schemes
AA Pick of the Pubs
Features
- Children welcome
- Children's portions
- Free Wifi
- Coach parties accepted
- Garden
- Open all year
Also in the area
About the area
Discover Somerset
Somerset means ‘summer pastures’ – appropriate given that so much of this county remains rural and unspoiled. Ever popular areas to visit are the limestone and red sandstone Mendip Hills rising to over 1,000 feet, and by complete contrast, to the south and southwest, the flat landscape of the Somerset Levels. Descend to the Somerset Levels, an evocative lowland landscape that was the setting for the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685. In the depths of winter this is a desolate place and famously prone to extensive flooding. There is also a palpable sense of the distant past among these fields and scattered communities. It is claimed that Alfred the Great retreated here after his defeat by the Danes.
Away from the flat country are the Quantocks, once the haunt of poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth. The Quantocks are noted for their gentle slopes, heather-covered moorland expanses and red deer. From the summit, the Bristol Channel is visible where it meets the Severn Estuary. So much of this hilly landscape has a timeless quality about it and large areas have hardly changed since Coleridge and Wordsworth’s day.
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