Dunster Yarn Market

Dunster Yarn Market was built in the early 17th Century and is now designated as a Grade I listed building and scheduled monument. The Yarn Market is an octagonal building which is constructed around a central pier.

Dunster village was an important market place during the middle ages mainly after the construction of Dunster Castle and the Priory Church of St George Church, Dunster. It is estimated that the market was built around 1609 by the Luttrell family who at the time wanted to maintain the importance of Dunster Village as a market for trading wool and cloth.

By the 16th and 17th centuries the demand had shifted from raw wool to finished cloth. Since Dunster cloth was woven in nearby mills, the village remained prosperous, as the building of the Yarn Market shows.

Before it was built, most of the buying and selling would have been done in the open air, but the English weather being what it is, there must have been occasions when trading was halted by wind or rain. Sellers might also have been worried about the security of their goods and The Yarn Market was a permanent solution to all these problems.

One of the Yarn Market roof beam bears the damage which was caused by cannon fire in the Civil War and the tiled roof provides shelter from the rain.

The Yarn Market is under the guardianship of English Heritage but it is managed by the National Trust.