Mounsey Castle

Nearest town:
South Molton (17km WSW)
OS reference:
SS885295
OS sheet:
181
Latitude:
51° 3' 12.35 N
Longitude:
3° 35' 27.71 W
Added to TMA by

Images

Image of Mounsey Castle (Hillfort) by juamei

Open Source Environment agency LIDAR

Image credit: © Environment Agency copyright and/or database right 2015.
juamei
juamei Jan 20, 2016

Articles

Folklore

Mounsey Castle
Hillfort
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Jan 21, 2014

Not far from the Wambarrows are the ramparts of an old British fort, Mouncey Castle, which has also its legend – namely, that on a certain night of the year a chariot passes round the hill, and disappears into the cairn in the field below.

From A Book of Exmoor by F J Snell (1903).

Folklore

Mounsey Castle
Hillfort
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Dec 30, 2011

There are the usual wild legends pertaining to Mouncey Castle. A neighbouring farmer announced his opinion that it was Druidical! while another told me that the ground beneath was hollow, and that as a consequence people were afraid to dig there. There was a rumour, too, of a subterranean passage, but where it was supposed to lead was unknown.

From‘An exploration of Exmoor and the hill country of West Somerset’ by John Lloyd Warden Page (1890).

Folklore

Mounsey Castle
Hillfort
Rhiannon
Rhiannon Jul 21, 2010

There’s a bridge over the river at the foot of this fort. The following pretty muddled story kind of suggests the fort and the bridge (and a big stone somewhere here too) are all the Devil’s Work:

There were once a curious cat over to Spire, a proper mischievous nuisance that cat were, always poking into anything new. [..] One day he went for a walk and he found Mounsey Castle. “Now who dropped this little lot?” says he. “I must go and see.” Then in the wood-side he come on a gurt stone, twelve foot or more, just dropped there, and he knew he were getting nearer. Then he heard yells of rage, and off he scuttles to see what ‘twas and it were the Devil and Parson, one on each side of the Barle and a new stone bridge atween ‘n. “I’ll have a look-see at that,” says Cat, and downhill he goes.

Says Parson to Devil, “You shan’t have none of my souls be first steps on your bridge. They bain’t going’ Somewhere Else’.”
“You old black crow,” yells Devil.
“If I be a crow,” says Parson, “I bain’t so black as yew!”
And just then puss walk out over on to Tarr Steps, to look it over, no matter if he’d been invited or no. The Devil pounced on ‘n like a lightning flash – and poor Cat goed Somewhere Else quicker than you could think!

The Tarr Steps are some way away, and they’re not really a ‘bridge’ as such (although yeah they’re probably the devil’s work), so they don’t need to be dragged into the story really, when there’s a bridge at hand at Mounsey Castle. The story’s like the one at the Devil’s Bridge near Aberystwyth – but there the Parson tricks the Devil into taking an animal rather than his parishoners: here the animal’s stupid enough to trap himself.

From Ruth Tongue’s ‘Folktales of England’, collected 1963.

Sites within 20km of Mounsey Castle

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