Blaise Hamlet is a group of nine small cottages around a green in Henbury, now a district in the north of

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

, England. All the cottages, and the sundial on the green, are Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

s. Along with Blaise Castle, the hamlet is listed, Grade II*, on the

Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England {{R from move ...

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (195 ...

described Blaise Hamlet as "the '' ne plus ultra'' of picturesque layout and design". Blaise Hamlet was built around 1811 for retired employees of

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

banker and philanthropist John Scandrett Harford, who owned Blaise Castle House. The hamlet was designed by John Nash, master of the

Picturesque Picturesque is an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin in ''Observations on the River Wye, and Several Parts of South Wales, etc. Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty; made in the Summer of the Year ...

style, who had worked for Harford on other buildings. The hamlet is the first fully realised exemplar of the

garden suburb The garden city movement was a 20th century urban planning movement promoting satellite communities surrounding the central city and separated with greenbelts. These Garden Cities would contain proportionate areas of residences, industry, an ...

and laid a pattern for virtually all garden suburbs that followed. The cottages are each unique and have brick chimneys and

dormer window A dormer is a roofed structure, often containing a window, that projects vertically beyond the plane of a pitched roof. A dormer window (also called ''dormer'') is a form of roof window. Dormers are commonly used to increase the usable spac ...

s, with some having thatched roofs. They are examples of the Picturesque style, an

aesthetic Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy,'' , acces ...

ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin. An oval path links the cottages and encircles the village green, where there is a

sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...

. The cottage gardens are planted in a

Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literatur ...

cottage garden The cottage garden is a distinct garden style that uses informal design, traditional materials, dense plantings, and a mixture of ornamental plants, ornamental and edible plants. English in origin, it depends on grace and charm rather than grandeu ...

style. Since 1943, the cottages have been owned by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

. They are occupied and not open to the public, but the ensemble may be viewed from the green.

Buildings

References

External links

Blaise Hamlet information at the National Trust
{{Culture in Bristol Houses in Bristol Tourist attractions in Bristol National Trust properties in Bristol Grade I listed buildings in Bristol Grade I listed houses Houses completed in 1811 Hamlets in England Henbury Grade II* listed parks and gardens in Bristol Georgian architecture in Bristol Grade I listed residential buildings Cottage orné

Buildings

See also

References

External links