NASH, John
(b. 1752, London, d. 1835, East Cowes, Isle of Wight)

Blaise Hamlet

1811
Photo
Henbury, Bristol

Nash successfully designed several country houses in which he switched effortlessly between versions of Castellated Gothic, Neoclassic or Italianate styles, as the client's whim dictated. However, he also took commissions for smaller-scale country dwellings which, imitating country cottages, aroused great interest at the time as expressions of an idealized rural existence.

In Henbury, near Bristol, Nash designed in 1811 a whole village of little cottages, called Blaise Hamlet, using the opportunity to create the very image of the Picturesque Style with this artificial idyll. The cottages, which are loosely clustered around a village green, are all completely different from each other with low-slung, interlocking roofs of stone slate, pantiles or thatch, bay windows and additions, picturesque dormers, and a whole variety of chimneys.