Dunster, with much else in these districts, from Kilve to Minehead, belongs to the Luttrells, whose heraldic shield of a bend sable on a golden field, between six martlets—a “martlet” being a heraldic bird of the swallow species, without feet, unknown to ornithologists—is in consequence frequently to be noticed here. The Luttrell motto is _Quaesita marte tuenda arte_; that is to say, “What has been gained by force of war should by skill be guarded.” We may here perhaps detect the glimmerings of one of those puns of which the old heralds were so fond, in the similarity in sound between “marte” and “martlet”; but it is not a favourable example. [Illustration: CONEYGORE TOWER, AND ROAD INTO MINEHEAD.] By what feat of arms, then, the traveller naturally enquires, did the Luttrells obtain these lands? By none at all, for, as a matter of fact, they came to the family by purchase, and when the heirs of the vendor sought to prove the sale illegal, it was by an action in a court of law, rather than by gage of battle, that they retained what they had bought. But it is well known that the family now owning the Luttrell lands are only Luttrells on the female side, and bear the name merely by adoption; Henry Fownes having in 1746 married Margaret Luttrell, heiress-general of these manors. The history of Dunster begins with an entry in Domesday Book. There we learn that “Torre,” as it is styled, was owned by a certain Aluric. Perhaps it were best to style that Saxon landowner uncertain Aluric, for that is all we hear of him. A mere mention by name in Domesday Book is, after all, no great thing. Thereafter it became chief among the properties of William de Mohun, from Moyun in Normandy, one of the Conqueror’s liegemen in the red field of Hastings. The author of the “Roman de Rou” speaks of him as: Le viel Guillaume de Moion Ont avec li maint compagnon. He was not, however, so elderly a warrior, but is thus described in order to distinguish him from his son. He became a very landed man in the West, with sixty-seven other far-flung manors in Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, and Devonshire, including that of Tor Mohun, Torquay. But he established his headquarters here, and here he built the first castle of Torre, which soon afterwards is found referred to for the first time as “Dunestora,” in the deed by which he, in 1100, gave the advowson of St. George’s, Dunster, the fisheries of Dunster and Carhampton, the village of Alcombe, and the tenth part of his vineyards, ploughlands, markets, and flocks to the monks of St. Peter’s Abbey at Bath.