Ghosts of Nunney Castle

John Delamere (John de la Mere) built Nunney Castle in the 14th century, a knight who gained wealth and royal favor by fighting for Edward III during the Hundred Years' War in France. He built the castle on the site of an existing unfortified manor house beside Nunney Brook.

In the 16th century, Richard Prater, a wealthy Londoner, bought it for two thousand pounds. The Prater family modernized the castle, adding windows for more light and a grand staircase in one tower.

During the English Civil War, the Prater family were Roman Catholics and supported the Royalist cause. Parliamentarians under Colonel Thomas Rainsborough besieged the castle, but a descendant of the castle's original owner, also named Richard Prater, refused to surrender and even flew a flag with a Catholic crucifix from the castle.

Many of the villagers were Parliamentarian Protestants, and one may have used his knowledge of the castle to tell the besieging army that the north wall was its most vulnerable point.

After two days of cannon fire, the north wall was breached, and the garrison of 80 men surrendered. Because the north wall had already been heavily damaged, the castle avoided being slighted.

It seems that one of the women inside the castle was a Royalist who had an affair with the Parliamentarian Puritan village minister. She seemed to have been a wandering vagabond and was accused by the villagers of being a witch. After the castle surrendered, she was tied up and thrown into a nearby stream, where she floated. This was the traditional trial for a witch and proof of her guilt. She was then burned at the stake in the shadow of the castle.

Her ghostly shadow now wanders the villages of Nunney and nearby Mells, Somerset's most haunted village. At Nunney Castle, an apparition of a grey lady is said to walk beside the moat at dawn and around the castle. She is said to be the woman accused of witchcraft and put to death near the castle.

Visitors have also seen dark figures on the upper floors of the ruins and felt watched from above, as if they were being observed. The ghosts of a large black horse and rider are said to ride through the village and up to the castle entrance before disappearing.