Enchanted Land: Nunney Castle

Last summer I found a book called The King's England: Enchanted Land by Arther Mee. It claimed to be full of the most enchanting and wonderful places in 1930's England. After reading a chapter of it I decided that I would visit (most of) theses places and I started plotting them on a google map. I moved down to Somerset on Saturday and today has been my first free day. So as it was supposed to be only sunny in the morning I popped out to my first Enchanted Land spot, Nunney Castle.

I recently passed my driving test and so driving through a absolutely beautiful village with Elbow 'One day like this' playing was the perfect way to start my Enchanted Land quest.

Enchanted Land describes Nunney as:

"If we would see a castle of another kind, gathering the village about it as a hen gathereth her chickens, we may come to Nunney in Somerset and stare as at a thing incredible. In a minute we can cross the moat of a 14th-century castle, run into the castle, cross the bridge of a stream, and be in the nave of a 15th century church. The village clusters round these four towers reflected in the sparkling water of the moat. Standing in the castle, open to the sky, we counted thirty doorways and windows in the walls, some of the windows with a splay of ten feet. It is an astonishing spectacle, and above it all the weathercock on the old church tower shines like dazzling gold."

I loved Nunney, it is a beautiful village with everything you could need, a shop, cafe, pub, retirement home and a 14th century castle! I think it was a perfect way to start my tour of this Enchanted Land. The castle was surrounded by a beautiful moat and as I crossed the bridge two children came into the castle. This was great as one of the children lived in the village and was telling the other child all the history about the castle, which meant that I learnt a lot about the castle (whilst they were running around playing hide and seek).

The site is owned by English Heritage, and thankfully it is free to enter. There are also two information boards describing the castle and if you do want to visit the opening times are apparently "any reasonable time" (this made me chuckle!).

I also made friends with a cat today... 

After walking round the castle and reading the passage from my Enchanted Land book, I walked up to the church. Again I was stunned by how beautiful the church was sitting on a little hill. Looking down from the top of the church you can see the castle surrounded by its moat and a stream which runs through the village with houses meeting the sides of it and willow trees falling over it. It was a beautiful village and I can't wait to see where the Enchanted Land will take me next...