National Trust: Blaise Hamlet

Blaise Hamlet was designed by the architect John Nash for the Quaker Banker, John Scandrett Harford, in 1811. Despite its small scale, it has been hugely influential on the design of domestic housing in the UK.
Nash had already designed an orangery and dairy for Harford in the nearby Blaise Castle, but this commission was designed to provide homes in an idealised setting for Harford’s elderly retainers from his estate. It is thus an early example of philanthropism in action.
More than this, however, it epitomised the chocolate-​box ideal of what an English village should look like: there are nine cottages, set around a small ‘village green’; each cottage is different, but all portray a rustic ideal, with stone walls, stylised chimneys, tiling and thatch, gables and inglenook fireplaces. Much copied, they are not to everyone’s taste: Pevsner in his Buildings of England wrote, ‘Blaise Hamlet is indeed responsible for some of the worst sentimentalities of England. Its progeny is legion and includes Christmas Cards and tea-​pots’. But even he admitted that it was, at the same time, enchanting.
The hamlet is now in the care of the National Trust and the cottages are rented out. Public access is restricted to the green during daylight hours.