Blaise Castle House Museum
Blaise Castle House Museum is situated in Blaise Estate in Henbury, Bristol, England. The mansion house was built in 1796–98 for merchant and banker John Harford. The Harford family resided there for over 100 years.
This story was created for the Google Expeditions project by Blaise Castle House Museum, now available on Google Arts & Culture
Today the mansion houses the museum’s collections of social and local history including domestic equipment, toys, paintings, dress and textiles.
The house, and the “castle” (built in 1766 as a summer house) are of historical significance along with numerous other structures on the estate, including an orangery and dairy.
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Picture Room
The Picture Room, with its classical portico and domed glass ceiling, was added to Blaise Castle House in 1832–1833, as a reception space for grand entertaining. It was designed by architect Charles Cockerell.
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The paintings are not original to the house but are part of the fine arts collection of Bristol Museum & Art Gallery. The majority are by Bristol native William James Müller (1812–1845), the best-known artist of the Bristol School.
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‘View of Bristol from Clifton Wood’ (1837)
William James Müller made this painting in 1837. Müller is probably best known for his landscape paintings, although he also painted city scenes (his paintings of Egyptian street life were popular) and figures. He worked in both oils and watercolors.
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Pillars
The pillars are made from scagliola (selenite, glue and natural pigment). The intention was to give the impression of solid marble.
Blaise Mansion Café
In 1947, when this photo was taken, the Picture Room was being used as a tea room known as the Blaise Mansion Café. You can see the fireplace in the background.
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Victorian Schoolroom
This recreation of a Victorian schoolroom includes a blackboard and easel, abacus, inkwells and a dunce hat. Victorian classes included prayers and bible reading, handwriting on a slate, arithmetic, spelling, object drawing.
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Learning was through repetition and memorization. Children were expected to stand and sit up straight, be very quiet, work diligently and keep their boots shiny.
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Dunce hat
Pupils who were slow to learn were made to wear a tall pointed hat inscribed with the letter ‘D’ or the word ‘Dunce’. So-called dunces were made to stand in the corner and were mocked by classmates.
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Canes
A Victorian teacher might use a wooden cane to discipline children who broke school rules. Boys were generally caned on the bottom or hands, while girls were caned on the backs of their legs and their hands.
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Abacus
Victorian children learned the ‘4 rules’ of mathematics at school: addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. Complex calculations could be worked out by moving the beads on the abacus. Abacuses are often associated with China, but their origins are unknown.
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20th Century Fashion
Blaise Castle House Museum’s costume collection consists of around 10,000 items dating from the 1730s to the present day. It allows visitors to trace fashions through time and learn about the social changes that shaped them.
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The displays feature dresses, accessories such as fans, hats and corsages, and a wide variety of types of shoes, including dancing slippers, silk boots, and platform shoes from the 1970s.
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1950s dress
The nipped-in waist and generous full skirt of this 1950s dress was fashion’s reaction against practical wartime clothes and rationing of the 1940s. This dress was made at home from a pattern, probably for a special occasion or dance.
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1930s evening dress
Women in the 1930s aspired to mimic Hollywood stars. Evening dresses were full length, and cut on the bias to cling to the figure. This dress, made for a grand social occasion, was daring for its time.
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1928 evening dress
After World War I, a new mood of excitement dominated the 1920s. Jazz music and dancing were popular with the young, and fashion changed dramatically. Shorter hemlines allowed for free movement, useful when dancing.
Cowboy style wellington boots
These children’s wellies were made in England in 1953. Their design was influenced by American Western films, which were extremely popular in the 1950s.
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19th Century Fashion
Here you can see part of the museum’s collection of clothes, accessories and textiles from 1800 to 1900. One hundred years is a long time in the world of fashion, and both women’s and men’s clothing changed enormously over this time period.
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Men’s waistcoats grew shorter and their suits dark and sombre. Corsets, bustles, crinolines and even sleeve supports evolved to help women to fit the fashionable shape of the day.
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Silk dress
This outfit was made in Paris by Charles Worth in about 1882. The designer showed his dresses to clients on live models. He used huge amounts of fabrics and trimmings on each outfit, and many of his designs are considered works of art.
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1840s day dress
Bold prints in strong colours like this were popular in the 1840s.
1840s day dress by Blaise Castle House Museum, Google Arts & Culture
Printing techniques developed rapidly from around 1800, and special effects, such as the deliberate fading in and out of colour on this print, became all the rage.
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Chaise lounge
During the 1800s the chaise longue was used by ladies who wanted to rest during the day without having to retire to their bedroom. This mahogany chaise longue is from about 1825.
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In the Home
The Bristol at Home galleries at Blaise Castle House Museum show some of the cooking, lighting, washing and other household equipment used in Bristol homes over the last 300 years.
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You can see how dogs were used to help with the cooking, see what an early vacuum cleaner looked like, and find out why the weekly washing used to take a whole day. The display includes a collection of baths and china toilets.
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Hand-operated washing machine with integrated mangle
Traditionally, Monday was washday, and most of the washing was done by hand until about 1950. It was long hard work and could take all day. This washing machine was made in the 1860s or 1870s.
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Gas-powered bath
This was one of the earliest types of bath to be plumbed in to a water supply. This made bathing easier since the bath didn’t need to be filled from buckets. Gas jets heated the bath and the cold water inside.
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Toilets
Before the flushing toilet was invented, ‘night soil men’ collected faeces from people’s privies in the night. It probably wasn’t the nicest job in the world!
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In the Kitchen
The processes may be the same, but the utensils and appliances we use to perform them have changed, and the objects in this gallery show some of that history.
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Dog wheel
Turnspit dogs were once used in large kitchens to ensure that the meat was evenly cooked over an open fire. A dog ran inside the wheel, turning the wheel and an attached roasting spit. The dogs were most widely used around 1750.
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Oil cooking stove
Lightweight stoves burning paraffin oil were used from about 1870 onwards. They were mostly used in rural areas where there was no gas supply. This stove is from the 1920s.
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Gas cooker, c.1890
From the late 1880s, the Bristol Gas Company offered gas cookers on cheap weekly rentals. Early models had cast iron bodies, but from the 1920s they were made of enamelled sheet iron which was lighter and easier to clean.
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Range, c.1910
Ranges with a closed fire were first introduced in 1802. They burned huge amounts of coal but were cleaner to use than open ranges. There were no thermometers so cooks put their hands inside to test the temperature.
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Curiosities, Clocks and Copper!
Upstairs at Blaise Castle House Museum, displays include copper and brass objects, clocks, lighting, and a cabinet of curiosities.
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The urge to collect is nothing new, and collections of the wonders of the world carefully cataloged and displayed in glass-fronted cabinets date back to 16th century Europe.
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They were popular among royalty and the aristocracy, who traveled and who could afford to buy oddities of unverifiable value. Collections like this served as ‘libraries’ and also as displays of wealth.
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Cabinet of curiosities
Cabinets of curiosities were also known as ‘wonder rooms’. They were a showcase for wonders of the natural world, skilled crafts, and anything exotic, bizarre or extraordinary.
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Copper and brass
Copper has been valued for its beauty since ancient times. It was mixed with zinc to form brass, which was a harder material and easier to cast. Brass was made in the Bristol area from the early 18th century.
Large glass lantern by Blaise Castle House Museum, Google Arts & Culture
Large glass lantern
Gas street lighting first appeared in Bristol in 1817. This lantern probably hung outside a shop or office in Bristol in the 19th century.
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Hallway
The hallway in Blaise Castle House features a grand cantilevered stone staircase with cast iron and wood railing, marble look wainscoting, and a frieze that shows the Panathenaic festival, an ancient tribute to Athena.
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The restrained use of decoration reflects the Neo Classical architectural style of the late Georgian period in which the house was built. Marks on the floor, date to WWII, when the house was occupied by armed forces.
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Rocking horse
Making rocking horses was a skilled craft which flourished in the 19th century. The head was carved from solid pine and the body was covered in gesso, a mixture of plaster and glue. The mane and tail were often real horsehair.
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Lorenzo de’ Medici
This statue is an 1850s cast of Michelangelo's 1524 sculpture for Lorenzo de’ Medici's tomb in Florence. It was added to the house, along with other pieces of classical sculpture, after the owner toured Europe and fell in love with the sculptures there.
