In 1766 Thomas Farr commissioned Robert Mylne to build the sham castle in Gothic Revival style.

After Farr's bankruptcy, the estate was sold several times until purchased by John Scandrett Harford, who demolished the previous dwelling in 1789 and built the Neoclassical Blaise Castle House.

His son, also named John Scandrett Harford, continued with the development of the buildings and estate, which his family occupied until 1926, when it was bought by Bristol City Council.

[13] In the later 18th century, the estate was owned by a sugar merchant and investor in the slave trade, Thomas Farr, who bought it from Astry's descendants in 1762;[8] he built the sham castle.

[12] Farr went bankrupt when ships he owned were blockaded during the American Revolutionary War,[3][14] and the estate was bought in 1778 by Denham Skeate, a lawyer from Bath.

The north west entrance front has five bays with a central semicircular projecting porch with Ionic columns.

[17] The elder Harford also had Blaise Hamlet built to house his servants and tenants, to designs of Nash and George Repton, in 1811.

[9] A branch of the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery since 1949, Blaise Castle House now features collections relating to household items in addition to its period interior decoration.

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.

Nikolaus Pevsner described Blaise Hamlet as "the ne plus ultra of picturesque layout and design.

[3] Parts of Repton's designs still exist, notably the carriage drive which winds its way from the house, sections of which follow the original route.

The gorge has a number of landscape features, including Goram's Chair, a limestone outcrop often used by climbers, and Lover's Leap and Potter's Point, two panoramic viewing spots.

Stratford Mill was moved from West Harptree and re-erected within the gorge after Chew Valley Lake was flooded to form a reservoir.

At the gorge's southern end, Hazel Brook joins the River Trym, which continues its flow towards Sea Mills.