reputed to have cost £3,000. The circular building is built of local ashlar stone with limestone dressings. It has three turrets with crenellated parapets. Denham Skeate opened the site to the public. It was open to paying visitors and a popular attraction from the first with excellent views on a clear day. Vessels could be seen passing on the River Avon from the castle, and the hills and mountains of Wales were visible beyond the river. The castle was mentioned by Jane Austen in her novel Northanger Abbey. John Thorpe, planning a trip to Bristol with Catherine Morland and her brother, describes the castle as "the finest place in England – worth going fifty miles at any time to see. It was inhabited into the 20th century and was elaborately decorated internally. It is a Grade II* listed building and was restored in 1957. Blaise Hamlet Blaise Hamlet is a hamlet composed of a group of nine small cottages around a green. It was originally within the estate grounds, but is now separated from the rest of the site by a road. All the cottages, and the sundial on the green are Grade I listed buildings. Nikolaus Pevsner described Blaise Hamlet as "the ne plus ultra of picturesque layout and design." Blaise Hamlet was built around 1811 for Harford's retired employees. The hamlet was designed by John Nash, master of the Picturesque style. He had worked for Harford on other buildings. The hamlet is the first fully realised exemplar of the garden suburb and was the inspiration for virtually all garden suburbs that followed. The cottages are all unique and include brick chimneys and dormer windows with some having thatched roofs. They are examples of the picturesque, an aesthetic ideal introduced into English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin. An oval path links the cottages and encircles the village green, which has a sundial at its centre. The cottage gardens are planted in a Victorian cottage garden style. The estate The castle and its of parkland are now open to the public. Along with Blaise Hamlet, the parkland is listed Grade II* on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England. The grounds were laid out by Humphry Repton (1752–1818) a leading landscape gardener. Parts of Repton's designs still exist, notably the carriage drive which winds its way from the house, sections of which