Blaise Castle House Museum

About Blaise Castle House Museum

Explore hundreds of weird and wonderful objects inside the museum that show how people used to live in the past. Gaze out of this 18th century mansion house over 400 acres of beautiful parkland and imagine that it all belongs to you and your family. Well it does and it's all free.

Situated in the beautiful parkland of the Blaise Estate at Henbury, the Museum is housed in a late 18th century mansion, and contains most of our social history collections.

You can see all sorts of familiar - and not so familiar - items from homes through history, treasured toys including the popular model train collection, and beautiful period costumes.

Blaise Castle House was built between 1796 and 1798 for John Harford, a wealthy Bristol merchant and banker. Some of the original ornamentation remains, such as casts of Classical and Neo-Classical sculptures and reliefs, including a set cast from the parthenon marbles.

The beautiful picture room was restored to its Victorian splendour during the 1990's. The picture room is licensed for civil marriages, civil partnership cermonies and naming ceremonies and is available for private hire. Read more about hiring the picture room.

The grounds of the house were laid out by Humphry Repton (1752-1818) a leading landscape gardener, and the Regency architect John Nash added the dairy and the conservatory.

Bristol at home galleries

These galleries show some of the cooking, lighting, washing and other household equipment used in Bristol houses over the last three hundred years.

You can see how dogs were used to help with the cooking, 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.

Costume galleries

The costume collection is the fourth largest in the South West. However limited space means that only a very small sample is on display at any one time.

The earliest dress in our nineteenth century costume gallery is a white muslin day dress from about 1810, and the latest a gorgeous gold 1870’s bustle back outfit.

The second costume gallery is currently showing late nineteenth century dresses, and a display of hats, shoes and accessories representing fashions in different decades of the twentieth century.

Toy rooms

Downstairs our toy room has cabinets of dolls dating from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, including the Bristol pedlar doll and an unusual set of Dionne quints from the 1930’s. There are also dolls houses, prams and early tricycles. Also on display is a selection from our extensive collection of Brittons’ lead soldiers, and some beautiful toy train sets.

Upstairs are miniature tea sets, dolls house furniture, and tin plate trains, planes, cars and zoo animals.

The picture room

The mid-Victorian picture room was added to the house in 1832 and recalls the classical grandeur of the period. The room has been restored to its former glory, its walls decorated with sumptuous red paper and hung with pictures from the City Museum and Art Gallery's collections. The picture room is available for private hire for civil marriages, civil partnership and naming ceremonies. Find out more about hiring the picture room.

The Victorian school room

The recreated classroom is much used by school groups, but is open to all visitors. If you especially want to see this room it is best to visit on a weekend.

The history of Blaise estate

On display is Humphry Repton’s Red Book of 1796, with beautiful watercolours showing plans for landscaping the park in a manner to befit the new house.

You can also find out about some of the people who lived at and helped design Blaise and see a miniature Blaise Hamlet.

Access information

• Due to the age and layout of the house, access is restricted.
• There is no lift and a staircase to the first floor.
• No wheelchair accessible toilet.

Please contact us if you would like more information.

Getting there

By public transport

Bus numbers 1, 40 and 40a all run from the city centre and stop near the museum.

If you are coming by train you can take the number 1 bus from outside Bristol Temple Meads station.  Walk down the station approach, cross over the main road and the bus stop is to your left.

By car

Exit M5 at junction 17 and take A4018 (sign posted West Bristol).

Carry on straight until the third roundabout, then take the right turn into Crow Lane passing a small bank of shops on the right. At the end of this road turn right into Henbury Road. Go over the mini roundabout into the one way system. You will pass 'Blaise Inn' on your right and bend to the right.

Continue straight on to find the public car park about 300 yards on the left.