Construction toy, 'The Mermaid Castle', Belville, Lego, 2005

Construction set and accessories contained in a box along with an instruction booklet. The set has 237 pieces which allow you to create a castle, a swing, and a chariot that is pulled by a seahorse. The castle is constructed of various light blue pieces along with several multi-colour bricks that are pink, yellow, white, glitter, light green, and dark blue. There are three rooms within the castle: a bedroom, a throne room, and a dining area. The illustrated instruction manual shows how to build each room, however the accessories for each can be moved around. Some of the accessories include: mustard yellow plates, yellow starfish, purple starfish, crabs, croissants, pink fish, orange fish, transparent blue rod, green wine glasses, a green decanter, pink cherries, crystal globe, a camera, a crown, a book, plants, seaweed, a swing, an anchor, fins, a treasure chest, and a hairbrush. Along with these accessories there are three merpeople and a large seahorse. The three merpeople are multi-jointed doll-like characters that are much larger than a usual LEGO mini-figure.

Purchased in 2017.

The Lego Group began in 1932 in the Danish workshop of Ole Kirk Christiansen, a carpenter known for his wooden toys. The company’s name, which was conceived by Christiansen himself, comes from the Danish phrase leg godt, which translates to “play well.” Following the Second World War, plastics became more widely available and Lego used the opportunity to shift their production to plastic toys. In 1949, in response to the British company Kiddicraft’s “Self-Locking Building Bricks”, Lego made their own version called “Automatic Binding Bricks,” which would later be called Lego Musten, or Lego Bricks. As the business began to expand beyond bricks, Lego began creating sets that allowed children to build vehicles, furniture, or even mini-figures. In an effort to target particular demographics, Lego introduced a series of new and specialised ranges in the late 1990s. A BIONICLE range, which used Lego Technic pieces and specialist mouldings, created action figures for boys, while Belville, made with brightly coloured bricks and large, posable figures, was aimed at girls.

Lego Belville was first introduced in 1994 as a product range directed at young girls. The sets included Belville figures which were larger, multi-jointed doll-like creatures, and a distinct colour scheme that included pink, purple, and glitter. Many of the sets focused on fairy-tale and fantasy themes and in 2005 Belville introduced a Hans Christian Anderson set which included five settings: The Snow Queen, The Tinderbox, The Princess and the Pea, Thumbelina, and The Mermaid Castle. The Belville sets were discontinued in 2009 and it wasn’t until 2012, with the introduction of Lego Friends, that another set was made specifically for girls.

B.143:1-2017