 Blaydes House was built in the late 1730s or early 1740s (the precise date is unknown) as the residence and business premises of the Blaydes family, one of the leading merchant families in the town and also owners of two shipyards, one on the River Hull, near the house, and another at Hessle Cliff, close to the northern end of the present-day Humber Bridge.The yards turned out vessels for the Royal Navy from the 1740s, but their main output was merchant ships, most famous among which was a collier named "Bethia", which was purchased by the Navy in 1787, adapted and renamed "HMS Bounty".The Blaydes family were also prominent in town politics, Benjamin Blaydes (whose initials can be seen in a carved monogram in the hallway ceiling) serving as Chamberlain in 1736.