Bijou Dollshouses, Braintree, Essex

This post is coming to you via an unexpected internet hotspot in our cottage in Lavenham, Suffolk :)  More photos from Lavenham in a later post, but I wanted to share with you today's trip to Bijou Dollshouses in Braintree.

This tiny shop is located in a craft centre outside Braintree in Essex.  It is very, very small, but everything in it is really good quality.

Bijou carries a wonderful line of 1:12 Tudor furniture by craftsman Tom Burchmore, and I was coveting a 6.5 inch long table with barley twist legs I had seen on the website, for the William and Mary House.  In the photo above you can see the short one on the bottom level and the really, really long one on the top -- the very kind saleswoman finally found the medium one in one of the gorgeous Tudor dolls houses :)  Hooray!

I wish I had taken more photos of the dollshouse pictured above.  It was absolutely gorgeous -- inspirational, beautifully-made -- and on sale for 1100.00 GBP :)

I adore the way this one has been finished.  It's a very East Anglian construction -- brick with flint infill -- and amazingly the finish is totally done in paint.  It's a bravura piece of trompe l'oeil painting.  I want one of my houses to be finished this way, although I'll probably use actual stones to represent the flint.

And here's what I bought!  Here's the table, with the pewter I picked up -- the large pitcher is by Warwick miniatures, and the two tankards, the flagon and two plates are old stock by St Justin Pewter in Cornwall.  In the second photo you can see a Warwick miniatures tea caddy and a griddle by (I think) The Village Wheelwright.  Really nice pieces.

And here's a nice pair of firedogs.

The last of my purchases today were four kits by McQueenie Miniatures.

These three are for Mum's roombox.  A side chair and a dressing table, that I will use for a desk under the window.  And a lovely bookcase.

I also splurged on an aumbry kit for the Tudor castle. All of  the McQueenie kits are mahogany, so I'll have to finish it in a way that disguises the colour of the wood, but I really, really wanted an aumbry and this kit has all the twiddly gothic cut-outs already done :)

What a lovely day!