Mrs Bryant's Pleasure - 1860

This house is a good example of a dolls' house which was not a child's plaything. Instead it was made for a lady called Mrs Bryant in the early 1860s. Mrs Bryant lived in a house in Surbiton, Surrey called Oakenshaw and wanted to make a miniature record of the interior of her home.

Mrs Bryant's Pleasure, Dolls' House, about 1860. Museum no. Misc.9-1955 (click image for larger version)

She commissioned a professional cabinet-maker to make the pieces of furniture, which were made with remarkable skill and accuracy. The rooms are furnished in exactly the same way as a middle-class home of the time would have been. The wallpaper is the same pattern that Mrs Bryant would have had on her walls at home. Bathrooms became more widespread in the 1890s, so here, the bedrooms are equipped with wash-stands and basins.

The kitchen is surprisingly small. A real kitchen in a middle-class household would have been considerably larger in order to accommodate the wide range of kitchen equipment needed. Among the miniature china are some well-known designs such as the famous Willow pattern.