Georgian House, Bristol

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The Georgian House Museum
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The Georgian House Museum
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Location within Bristol
General information
Town or city7 Great George Street, Bristol BS1 5RR
Country England
Coordinates 51°27′14″N2°36′12″W / 51.45391°N 2.60337°W / 51.45391; -2.60337 Coordinates: 51°27′14″N2°36′12″W / 51.45391°N 2.60337°W / 51.45391; -2.60337
Construction started1788
Completed1791
Client John Pinney
Design and construction
Architect(s) William Paty

The Georgian House is a historic building at 7 Great George Street, Bristol, England. It was originally built around 1790 for John Pinney, a wealthy sugar merchant and slave plantation owner, and is now furnished and displayed as a typical late 18th century town house. The period house museum includes a drawing room, eating room, study, kitchen, laundry and housekeeper's room. There is also a small display on slavery and sugar plantations. The Georgian House has been a branch of Bristol City Council since it was presented to the city as a museum in 1937.

Contents

The museum is open from 1 April to 31 December on Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, 11am-4pm. It received 32,127 visitors in 2019. [1]

History

The Georgian House is a well-preserved example of a typical late 18th-century town house, which has been designated by English Heritage as a grade II* listed building. [2] It was built around 1790 for John Pinney, a sugar merchant and slave plantation owner, and is believed to be the house where the poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge first met. [3] It was also home to the freed slave Frances Coker who was a maid [4] and Pinney's slave, Pero, after whom Pero's Bridge at Bristol Harbour is named. [5]

It contains some of the original furniture and fittings, such as the bureau-bookcase in the study and a rare cold water plunge bath, and has been used as a location for the BBC TV series A Respectable Trade, which was adapted from the book by Philippa Gregory, about the slave trade.

Areas of the house

Film and media

On 5 July 2010, Amanda Vickery filmed scenes for her series At home with the Georgians at the Georgian House. [6]

See also

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Frances "Fanny" Coker aka Fumnanya was enslaved on Nevis. She was a domestic servant who was the property and later servant to John and Jane Pinney of Nevis and Bristol. She moved to Bristol where the Pinneys lived at The Georgian House; at Racedown house at Broadwindsor in Dorset and at the lost building called "Somerton Erleigh" at Somerton in Somerset. She wrote home to her enslaved relatives and revisited Nevis.

References

  1. "ALVA - Association of Leading Visitor Attractions". www.alva.org.uk. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  2. "The Georgian House, attached front area railings and rear garden walls". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 14 March 2007.
  3. "Georgian House". Homes and Gardens. Archived from the original on 6 March 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-14.
  4. Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (23 September 2004), "The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography", The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. ref:odnb/73299, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73299 , retrieved 9 February 2023
  5. "Bristol's Georgian House". Bristol Museums. Archived from the original on 5 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-14.
  6. "Amanda Vickery tweet 5 July 2010" . Retrieved 14 February 2016.