Acton Burnell Castle

The remains of Acton Burnell Castle are a fortified manor house, constructed between 1284 and 1285 for Robert Burnell, who later died in 1292. The structure is built from roughly squared and coursed red and grey sandstone with ashlar dressings, featuring C18 stone slate hipped roofs over the west block and south-west tower.

The castle originally comprised a four-bay central block, which previously held a three-bay hall on the first floor and a single-bay chamber above, situated over ground-floor buttery and service rooms. A small, projecting garderobe block is located to the west. There are projecting square corner towers, originally containing a garderobe to the north-west, stairs to upper chambers to the south-west, a possible chapel and stairs to the hall to the north-east, and stairs to an undercroft to the south-east.

The castle stands two and three storeys high, with towers rising four storeys. It features battlemented parapets; the towers display moulded plinths and chamfered offsets. Large two-light windows with cusped geometrical tracery are present on the ground floor, alongside lancets to the north. Rectangular openings are visible in the towers. Disturbed masonry in the central block suggests the presence of former buttresses. The structure originally had a two-span roof, supported by corbels, with a now-demolished central hall arcade.

Robert Burnell, who built the castle, served as Chancellor of England and Bishop of Bath and Wells, and the design shares similarities with a palace he constructed at Wells. In the C18, the ruins were used as a barn, resulting in the creation of large, depressed archways in the north and south walls. To the east of the castle are the gable ends of a large C13 stone barn, and the Church of St Mary is situated immediately to the north-west.