The Edwardian Dollhouse Style – Another Great Era For Dollhouses!

Today, I am going to talk about the Edwardian time period: the style, the architecture, some history, the interior, and of course, our Edwardian dollhouses.

Let’s just dive straight into things!

updated 29.07.23

What Is The Edwardian Time Period?

In general, you can say that the Edwardian time period started after the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. And it ended with the start of the Second World War.

This period started at the beginning of a new century (the 20th). It can be characterized as a period in which the British Empire was at the height of its existence.

You could still say that the British class society was still clearly profiled. With huge differences between a small prosperous upper class and a large underclass, still living in poverty.

In general, you can say that there was a belief in progress, stimulated by all kinds of inventions and new scientific discoveries.

This time period also started with the emancipation of the industrial working class and women had a few more roles in politics.

If you are interested in more information about the way of life of the Edwardians, you might have a look at this almost 2 hours long YouTube video:

It was in the Edwardian time period that the British Empire started to lose some of its world’s empire power to the USA and to the German empire.

Don’t Confuse Edwardian Dolls Houses with Victorian dollhouses.

Although the Victorian age and the Edwardian era have some similarities (both are named after the reigns on the throne during that time period), there are some major differences.

The Victorian age ( 1837-1901) was earlier than the Edwardian and the latter had different morals. While the Victorian era was very conservative, the Edwardians had a more lax standard in their code of conduct.

The Edwardian architecture.

Edwardian-style homes and dollhouses have a lot fewer decorations than the ones in High or Late Victorian architecture. It seems that the Edwardian ‘Baroque‘ architecture is an exception to this.

The style is characterized by the use of light colors and simple patterns. Mostly it was inspired by Victorian architecture, but the Georgian, Classicist, Jugendstil, and Art Nouveau style, also played a role.

Have a tour around ‘Manderston House’ on YouTube. It is an Edwardian country house:

What’s important to know, regarding Edwardian-style dollhouses, is that it became more and more common for houses to have electricity, phones, indoor plumbing, and even cars!

Here are a few characteristics of an Edwardian house that you need to consider:

• the homes have straight lines
• they have red brickwork
• Dutch gables can be present
• the rooms are wide and bright
• they have parquet wooden floors
• a wide hallway
• the top of the house has Mock-Tudor cladding and timbers
• the porch has wooden frames
• the interior decoration is quite ‘simple’ and far less cluttered than the Victorian houses
• deep bay windows and sash windows
• the trend was to half-clad the exteriors of the houses in timber
• putting flowers in the homes became very popular

Maybe by now, you are a bit confused about the differences between all the styles?

Then you can learn the differences between a Georgian/Edwardian or Victorian-style home on this website.

Edwardian-Style Dollhouses And Miniatures and Edwardian dolls

I found it pretty hard to find miniature artists who specialized in this particular style. Maybe it’s a combination of it being a short period in time and/or not being as ‘rich and wealthy’ as the former Victorian era style?

But I did find an interesting book on the Edwardian era miniatures from Jane Harrop, filled with DIY projects. There are over 40 projects with clear instructions, divided by room for a dollhouse.

The rooms include the hallway, the living room, the Morning room, the bedroom, the kitchen, and the attic.

Furthermore, I did find some fantastic miniature artists who create Edwardian-style dollhouses and/or miniatures, a little list:

1. Wrambeck Miniatures

This artist has a Facebook page and sells her creations from time to time. She crafts historic miniatures on a scale of 1:12 and that includes Edwardian style.

Let me show you a few pictures of her Edwardian bathroom first:

Then there is the grand music room in her Edwardian townhouse:

The green drawing room and a handmade miniature bag! For more, please check out her Facebook!

You can also see gorgeous Edwardian dolls.

2. Preston Manor Dollhouse Kit

Have a look at this gorgeous finished Edwardian dollhouse called Preston Manor. I presumed it is named after the real building in Brighton! I wish I knew where these people got the kit from, let me know if you do!

3. Simon Williams Miniatures

It looks like Simon Williams, whose Georgian-style rooms I have shown before in this article, is also creating Edwardian-style homes and minis 🙂

Have a look at his Instagram page as well.

4. Julie Warren

Jullie Warren has written several miniature-tutorial books and apparently, there are also a few Edwardian projects in one of them, like this desk and chair, pretty!

5. Dana Burton’s dolls

I saw someone in a dollhouse group mentioning the dollhouse dolls made by Dana Burton and I fell in love! These dolls (with of course lots of Edwardian dolls) are incredibly detailed and life-like, they blow me away!

Dana Burton is an artist, writer, and worldwide teacher, who sells tutorials online for all kinds of dolls. (have a look at the dollmaking tutorials here).

She also wrote a book called ‘Minidoll secrets’.

Someone on my Facebook group is crazy about the Edwardian era and made a complete room box (in an empty radio), filled with miniatures that she collected over the years, including 2 ‘Edwardian’ ladies from Dana Burton. Isn’t this wonderful?

Well, that is about all I could find on the Edwardian dollhouse topic, please let me know if I have missed out on someone that I should know about! To conclude with another video:

My final conclusion.

As you can see, the choice of artists who craft Edwardian-style dollhouses, miniatures, or dolls is more limited than for example the Victorian or Tudor style.

I think this is because this time period wasn’t very long or very ‘rich’, and in historic dollhouse scenes, people tend to prefer the ‘bling-bling’ of other eras, but I could be wrong?

If would you like to give your opinion on this topic, or hint at me in any other way, then please leave a comment below or join me now on my latest Facebook group, which has about 5000 members now! Much welcome!

I wish you happy crafting!

Best regards,

Lizzy

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