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Doorway to Layer Marney Tower, showing the distinctive low Tudor arch and patterns in the brickwork.

The Deanery Tower in Hadleigh, Suffolk, early Henry VIII

Compton Wynyates, begun 1491, at the start of the period. Determinedly asymmetrical and set low in the landscape

The Tudor architectural style is the final development of Medieval architecture in England, during the Tudor period (1485–1603) and even beyond, and also the tentative introduction of Renaissance architecture to England. It is generally not used to refer to the whole period of the Tudor dynasty (1485–1603), but to the style used in buildings of some prestige in the period roughly between 1500 and 1560. It followed the Late Gothic Perpendicular style and was superseded by Elizabethan architecture from about 1560 in domestic building of any pretensions to fashion. In the much more slow-moving styles of vernacular architecture "Tudor" has become a designation for styles like half-timbering that characterize the few buildings surviving from before 1485 and others from the Stuart period. In this form the Tudor style long retained its hold on English taste.^[1] Nevertheless, 'Tudor style' is an awkward style-designation, with its implied suggestions of continuity through the period of the Tudor dynasty and the misleading impression that there was a style break at the accession of Stuart James I in 1603.

The low Tudor arch was a defining feature. Some of the most remarkable oriel windows belong to this period.^[1] Mouldings are more spread out and the foliage becomes more naturalistic.^[1] During the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, many Italian artists arrived in England; their decorative features can be seen at Hampton Court Palace, Layer Marney Tower, Sutton Place, and elsewhere. However, in the following reign of Elizabeth I, the influence of Northern Mannerism, mainly derived from books, was greater. Courtiers and other wealthy Elizabethans competed to build prodigy houses that proclaimed their status.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries redistributed large amounts of land to the wealthy, resulting in a secular building boom, as well as a source of stone.^[2] The building of churches had already slowed somewhat before the English Reformation, after a great boom in the previous century, but was brought to a nearly complete stop by the Reformation. Civic and university buildings became steadily more numerous in the period, which saw general increasing prosperity. Brick was something of an exotic and expensive rarity at the beginning of the period, but during it became very widely used in many parts of England, even for modest buildings, gradually restricting traditional methods such as wood framed daub and wattle and half-timbering to the lower classes by the end of the period.

Scotland was a different country throughout the period, and is not covered here, but early Renaissance architecture in Scotland was influenced by close contacts between the French and Scottish courts, and there are a number of buildings from before 1560 that show a more thorough adoption of continental Renaissance styles than their English equivalents.

Typical features

Gatehouse of Oxburgh Hall in Oxborough

Tudor style buildings have several features that separate them from Medieval and later 17th-century design.

Nobility, upper classes, and clerical

The Early Years: Henry Tudor And The Seeds of The Renaissance

Though this period is better known for the luxuries and excesses of his son and granddaughter, it was actually under Henry VII that the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance began and it is often underestimated how much effort the founder of the Tudor dynasty invested in making huge changes to the way things were done before versus the way they were being done by the time he died.

Prior to 1485, many wealthy and noble landowners lived in homes that were not necessarily comfortable but built to withstand sieges, though manor houses that were only lightly fortified, if at all, had been increasingly built. Castles and smaller manor houses often had moats, portcullises and crenelations designed for archers to stand guard and pick off approaching enemies.

However, with the arrival of gunpowder and cannons by the time of Henry VI, fortifications like castles became increasingly obsolete. The autumn of 1485 marked the ascension of Henry VII to the throne. Until Henry's accession, England had been engaged in the Wars of the Roses that had left the royal coffers in deep trouble-Yorkists had raided the treasury just after the death of Edward IV.^[3] Therefore, in 1487, Henry Tudor passed laws against livery and maintenance, which checked the nobility's ability to raise armies independent of the crown, and raised taxes mightily on the nobility through a trusted advisor, John Morton. Henry Tudor was hellbent on repairing the damage done by so many years of war, and that meant increasing financial security. It also meant recentralising power in London with the crown alone and away from interrelated nobles who had been squabbling over scraps of power since the reign of Richard II, evidenced by the crown beginning to be fought over by different branches of the descendants of Edward III at that time. From Henry's point of view, there were taxes to collect, bills of attainder to hand out to the disloyal, Yorkists to marry off to Lancastrians, the majesty of the monarchy to repair and restore, and a metaphorical wrecking ball to be applied to the medieval ideal of the warrior king crouching in his fortress and his vassals in theirs.

During the reign of Henry VII, he made some savvy business investments in the alum trade and made vast improvements to the waterborne infrastructure of the country: the site of his dry dock in Portsmouth still is used today, and equally because of Henry's investments in alum (a mordant used for dying wool, a major export of England at the time) records also show a striking increase in the volume of ships and thus trade coming in and out of England.^[4][5] Portsmouth was an early pet project of Henry VII, one he paid approximately £193 for the entire construction, a sum that for its time was enormous. It must be note that not all Tudor architecture was of a residential nature, and this particular one is very important as it laid the foundation for other civic projects done under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Henry Tudor built the very first dry dock in the world at this site. It was a big leap forward from what was available during the Medieval period: for most of the period ships were poorly suited to trade that reached any farther than just off the coast and were no match for the turbulence of waters like the North Sea let alone crossing the Atlantic.^[6] Within three years of Henry Tudor's ascension to the throne, however, Bartolomeu Dias had rounded the future tip of today's South Africa and by doing so would change the world forever: he opened up a sea passage to Asia and opened a route that completely cut out the reliance on the Silk Road and the Turks who controlled it. Ships were beginning to get faster and more capable of much longer journeys. Patronage of explorers would be a theme of the rest of Henry's adulthood, and it behooved him to take advantage of having the only place in all of Europe that could repair ships, build new ones, remove barnacles and shipworms, and break up and recycle older ships.

Purchasing eight acres, he handed off the job of constructing it to a trusted councillor Sir Reginald Bray with the final construction, according to a 17th-century tome, measuring 330 feet on each side, the bottom of the dock 395 feet long, and the whole 22 feet deep. The wharf on the outside of the piers that marked the dock's location were 40 feet on each side at a depth of 22 feet. Henry VII and the dock operated by swinging some hinged gates open, allowing the ship to enter, and then water was taken out with a bucket and chain pump worked by a horse-gin.^[7]

Richmond Palace, west front, drawn by Antony Wyngaerde in 1562

Further combinations of new laws, government reform, increased amounts of money pouring into the nation, new businesses opening up for a newly minted merchant class that was finally free of the last remnants of feudalism, and a much modernized exchequer opened the door to a boom period for England. Wealthy homes could be built for material comfort and aesthetics rather than as imposing stone citadels and for arts and humanities to take more precedence over battle axes.

In the early part of his reign, Henry Tudor favored two sites, both on the River Thames though in opposite directions, with one west of Westminster and one east of it. Upon his rise to power he inherited many castles, but notably he did very little to these. Recent evidence suggests that he made notable improvements to other properties belonging to the crown, including Greenwich Palace, also known as the Palace of Placentia. Although today the Old Royal Naval College sits on the site of the palace, evidence suggests that, shortly after ascending the throne, Henry spent a very large amount of money on enlarging it and finishing off a watchtower built prior to his reign; his Queen, Elizabeth, gave birth to Henry VIII and his brother Edmund in this palace. Henry Tudor's palace facing the Thames Estuary would have had a massive brick courtyard that faced the River Thames and commanded a view of the ships passing by.^[8] As of 2018 archaeological digs continue and much has been discovered regarding the kind of palace Henry (and later his son) invested so much money and time into. For example, recent archaeology suggests that Greenwich had "bee boles": these were found in the basement of the palace and were little nooks in which beehives were kept during winter when honeybees hibernate. They would be taken out to provide for the king's table in spring and they are numerous, suggesting the desire for grand amounts of entertaining.^[9] Surprisingly, much of the remains beneath the royal college reveal an edifice built with brick, not stone: castles in England going back to the Normans had been built with stone, never brick, hence this is an early advancement in technology and style and given its load bearing position at the bottom of the building it is extremely unlikely to have been erected under the aegis of any later monarch. It is also believed he added a sizeable chapel to the grounds with black and white tiles, discovered in 2006.^[10]

Sheen, was someway down river from (and in the present day part of) London and became a primary residence as Henry's family and court grew larger. This had been one of the royal palaces since the reign of Edward II, with the most recent additions as at 1496 being by Henry V in 1414. The building was largely wooden with cloisters and several medieval features, such as a grand central banqueting hall, and the Privy Chambers facing the river very much resembling a 15th-century castle.^[11].

This burnt to the ground at Christmas 1497, with the royal family in residence; accounts of it made by a foreign ambassador to the court describe a catastrophe so big in magnitude that it nearly killed the king himself. However, within months Henry began a magnificent new palace in a version of Renaissance style. This, called Richmond Palace and now lost save for some fragments, has been described as the first prodigy house, a term for the ostentatious mansions of Elizabeth's courtiers and others, and was influential on other great houses for decades to come as well as a seat of royal power and pageantry of an equivalent of modern day Buckingham Palace or the 18th century St. James's Palace.

Henry VIII and later

Detail of Georg Hoefnagel's 1568 watercolour of the south front of Nonsuch Palace. This is the way it would have looked early in the reign of Elizabeth I.

Little Moreton Hall, built in stages between 1504–1562

Henry VII was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII, a man of a very different character of his father, who spent enormous amounts on building many palaces, most now vanished, as well as other expensive forms of display. In a courtyard of Hampton Court Palace he installed a fountain that for celebrations flowed with wine.^[12]
He also built military installations all along the southern coast of England and the border with Scotland, then a separate nation.

Henry VIII's most ambitious palace was Nonsuch Palace, south of London and now disappeared, an attempt to rival the spectacular French royal palaces of the age and, like them, using imported Italian artists, though the architecture is northern European in inspiration. Much of the Tudor palace survives at Hampton Court Palace, which Henry took over from his disgraced minister Cardinal Wolsey and expanded, and this is now the surviving Tudor royal palace that best shows the style.

As time wore on, quadrangular, 'H' or 'E' shaped floor plans became more common, with the H shape coming to fruition during the reign of Henry VII's son and successor.^[13] It was also fashionable for these larger buildings to incorporate 'devices', or riddles, designed into the building, which served to demonstrate the owner's wit and to delight visitors. Occasionally these were Catholic symbols, for example, subtle or not so subtle references to the trinity, seen in three-sided, triangular, or 'Y' shaped plans, designs or motifs.^[14] Earlier clerical buildings would have had a cross shape so as to honour Christ, such as in Old St Paul's and the surviving York Cathedral, but as with all clerical buildings, this was a time of great upheaval catalyzed by Henry VIII's Reformation.

A part of his policy was the suppression of the monasteries and several examples of the Middle Ages today lie in ruins because of the nobility raiding the properties for building materials, gold, and anything of monetary value: for many the only way to escape being destroyed was the monarch holding a personal interest in keeping the abbey or cathedral intact (Westminster Abbey being an excellent example.). One of the most famous examples of this lies in East Anglia, near the village of Walsingham. Predating the Norman Conquest, this area of the present day United Kingdom was a major site of pilgrimage dedicated to the Virgin Mary, the mother of Christ. Over the centuries an Augustinian priory was erected upon the site that grew wealthy from pilgrims' donations and for its era this one of the most popular shrines in all of England: Monarchs from Henry III-Henry VII had worshipped at the place by 1510, and even men as famous as Erasmus visited. During Henry VIII's Reformation, however, the records show that the monks at Walsingham were turned out into the streets, the priory chapel was desecrated, and the gold and silver ornamentations of the architecture were looted. Illuminated manuscripts were burned. The statue of Our Lady of Walsingham at the center of the shrine was brought back to London as a trophy to be destroyed, and the property itself was turned over to a man in the king's favour whereafter it was mined for its stone.

The great majority of images, and elements of church furniture disapproved of by the Protestants, were destroyed in waves under Henry VIII, Edward VI, and later during the English Commonwealth. For example, during the reign of Edward VI parishioners witnessed a royal decree ripping out the rood screen in every single church: none of these now survive and in addition many altarpieces were burned. While Henry VIII was still alive, many statues and shrine objects were smashed or burnt: they were considered "abused images" and a form of idolatry by many aligning with the king.^[15] Building of new churches became much less frequent, and as a result England actually has larger numbers of medieval churches whose main fabric has survived than most parts of Europe. Tragically, however, larger buildings like Jervaulx or Fountains, buildings whose wealth and grandeur were meant to rival Notre-Dame de Paris often do not even have their stained glass windows and are a shadow of their former selves.

During this period the arrival of the chimney stack and enclosed hearths resulted in the decline of the great hall based around an open hearth that was typical of earlier Medieval architecture. Instead, fireplaces could now be placed upstairs and it became possible to have a second story that ran the whole length of the house.^[16] Tudor chimney-pieces were made large and elaborate to draw attention to the owner's adoption of this new technology.^[2] The jetty appeared, as a way to show off the modernity of having a complete, full-length upper floor.^[2]

Decorative Tudor brick chimneys at Hampton Court Palace

Buildings constructed by the wealthy had these common characteristics:

• An 'E' or 'H' shaped floor plan
  


• 
  Brick and stone masonry, sometimes with half timbers on upper floors in grand houses earlier in the period


• Recycling of older medieval stone, especially after Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries. Some reuse of monetary buildings as houses.


• Curvilinear gables, an influence taken from Dutch designs, from the mid-century


• Large displays of glass in very large windows several feet long; glass was expensive so only the rich could afford numerous large windows


• 
  Depressed arches in clerical and aristocratic design, especially in the early-middle portion of the period


• 
  Hammerbeam roofs still in use for great halls from Medieval period under Henry VII until 1603; were built more decoratively, often with geometric-patterned beams and corbels carved into beasts


• Most windows, except large ones, are rectangular, and drip moulds common above them.


• Classical accents such as round-headed arches over doors and alcoves, plus prominent balustrades from time of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I
  


• Large brick chimneys, often topped with narrow decorative chimney pots in the homes of the upper middle class and higher. Ordinary medieval village houses were often made much more pleasant to live in by the addition of brick fireplaces and chimneys, replacing an open hearth.


• Wide, enormous stone fireplaces with very large hearths meant to accommodate larger scale entertaining; in aristocratic homes the formal rooms may have large chimneypieces in stone, sometimes with the family's heraldry.


• Enormous ironwork for spit roasting located inside cooking fireplaces. In the homes of the upper class and nobility it was fashionable to show off wealth by being able to roast all manner of beasts weighing less than 500 grams on up to a full grown bull; in the case of royalty it would be seen as dishonor if the monarch's table could not provide equal to that of the Continental powers of France and Spain. Managing the flames would be the job of either a spit boy (Henry VII's reign) or later on a new invention where a turnspit dog ran on a treadmill (Elizabeth I's reign.)


• Long galleries


• 
  Tapestries serving a triple purpose of keeping out chill, decorating the interior, and displaying wealth. In the wealthiest homes these may contain gold or silver thread.


• 
  Gilt detailing inside and outside the home


• Geometric landscaping in the back of the home: large gardens and enclosed courtyards were a feature of the very wealthy. Fountains begin to appear in the reign of Henry VIII.

Commoner classes

Anne Hathaway's Cottage, a timber-framed farmhouse

The houses and buildings of ordinary people were typically timber framed. The frame was usually filled with wattle and daub but occasionally with brick.^[2] These houses were also slower to adopt the latest trends, and the great hall continued to prevail.^[16]

Smaller Tudor-style houses display the following characteristics:

• Simpler square or rectangular floor plans in market towns or cities


• Farmhouses retain a small fat 'H' shape and traces of late Medieval architecture; modification was less expensive than entirely rebuilding


• Steeply pitched roof, with thatching or tiles of slate or more rarely clay (London did not ban thatched roofs within the city until the 1660s)


• 
  Cruck framing in use throughout the period


• 
  Hammerbeam roofs retained for sake of utility (remained common in barns)


• Prominent cross gables
  


• Tall, narrow doors and windows


• Small diamond-shaped window panes, typically with lead casings to hold them together


• 
  Dormer windows, late in the period


• 
  Flagstone or dirt floors rather than all stone and wood


• 
  Half-timbers made of oak, with wattle and daub walls painted white


• 
  Brickwork in homes of gentry, especially Elizabethan. As with upper classes, conformed to a set size of 210–250 mm (8.3–9.8 in) × 100–120 mm (3.9–4.7 in) × 40–50 mm (1.6–2.0 in), bonded by mortar with a high lime content


• 
  Jettied top floor to increase interior space;^[17] very common in market town high streets and larger cities like London


• Extremely narrow to nonexistent space between buildings in towns


• 
  Inglenook fireplaces. Open floor fireplaces were a feature during the time of Henry VII but had declined in use by the 1560s for all but the poor as the growing middle classes were becoming more able to build them into their homes. Fireplace would be approximately 138 cm (4.5 ft) wide × 91 cm (3 ft) tall × at least 100 cm (3.3 ft) deep. The largest fireplace – in the kitchen – had a hook nailed into the wall for hanging a cooking cauldron rather than the tripod of an open plan. Many chimneys were coated with lime or plaster inside to the misfortune of the owner: when heated these would decompose and thus the very first fire codes were implemented during the reign of Elizabeth I, as many lost their homes because of faulty installation.


• 
  Oven not separated from apparatus used in fireplace, especially after the reign of Edward VI; middle-class homes had no use for such enormous ovens nor money to build them.


• More emphasis on wooden staircases in homes of the middle class and gentry
  


• 
  Outhouses in the back of the home, especially beyond cities in market towns. Flushable toilets were centuries away for the middle classes and in some less common cases they would not move indoors completely until the second half of the 20th century.


• Little landscaping behind the home, but rather small herb gardens. Occasionally bee skeps would be kept in this area as a means of getting wax for candles and also, when in season,honey.


• The poorest classes lived in hovels, a building with a slightly different definition than today: it was a one-room wattle-and-daub hut. Most did not have the copyhold on the land they occupied and were tenants on another man's land; amenities were very basic in that there was a place to sleep, a place to eat, and a place to cook.

Examples

Church

In church architecture the principal examples, all still essentially Perpendicular Gothic, are:

• The final stages of King's College Chapel, Cambridge (1446–1515)


• 
  St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle (1475–1528)


• 
  Henry VII Lady Chapel at Westminster Abbey (1503–1509)^[1]
  


• The chapel at Hampton Court Palace

College

Tudor architecture remained popular for conservative college patrons, even after it had been replaced in domestic building. Portions of the additions to the various colleges of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge were still carried out in the Tudor style until the middle of the 18th century,^[1] overlapping with the first stirrings of the Gothic Revival.

There are also examples of Tudor architecture in Scotland, such as King's College, Aberdeen.

Domestic

Historic Tudor houses along Mill Street in Warwick

Entrance facade of Sutton Place, Surrey, dating from around 1525

• 
  Anne Hathaway's Cottage, Stratford Upon Avon, Warwickshire: typical 16th-century farmhouse; contains many original features of the house as it would have been in the 1580s.


• 
  Athelhampton House, Dorchester, Dorset - early Tudor


• 
  The Barbican, Devon, Plymouth
  


• 
  Bishop Percy House, Bridgnorth, Shropshire
  


• 
  Burghley House, Stamford, Lincolnshire
  


• 
  Castle Lodge, Ludlow, Shropshire


• 
  Charlecote Park, Warwickshire


• 
  Compton Wynyates, Warwickshire


• 
  Conquest House, Canterbury, Kent


• 
  East Barsham Manor, Norfolk
  


• 
  Eastbury Manor House, London
  


• 
  Eltham Palace, Greenwich, London
  


• 
  Ford's Hospital, Coventry
  


• The Guildhall in Thaxted, Essex
  


• 
  Hampton Court Palace, London


• 
  Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, 1525–1538


• 
  Henley Street, Stratford Upon Avon, Warwickshire-historic district of the entire town, includes the birthplace of William Shakespeare, a large Tudor edifice constructed c. 1570's.


• 
  Hunsdon House, Hertfordshire
  


• 
  Kenilworth Castle, Kenilworth, Warwickshire – retains many elements from Robert Dudley's 1570s design


• 
  Layer Marney Tower, Essex


• Mill Street, Warwick, Warwickshire


• 
  Mapledurham House, Mapledurham, Oxfordshire
  


• 
  Montacute House, Somerset – late Tudor


• 
  Nonsuch Palace – perhaps the grandest of Henry VIII's building projects


• 
  Old Market Hall, Shrewsbury
  


• 
  Owlpen Manor, Gloucestershire
  


• 
  Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk


• 
  Prysten House, Plymouth, Devon c. 1490


• Gatehouse of Richmond Palace, London – early Tudor


• 
  Rainthorpe Hall, Tasburgh, Norfolk
  


• 
  Shaw House, Newbury, Berkshire
  


• 
  Sir Thomas Herbert's House, Pavement, York
  


• Southover Grange, Lewes, East Sussex - c. 1572


• 
  Speke Hall, Liverpool
  


• 
  Sutton House, London Borough of Hackney
  


• 
  Sutton Place, Surrey – c. 1525


• Tudor Barn Eltham, London^[18]
  


• 
  Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire – late Tudor

Tudor Revival

In the 19th century a free mix of late Gothic elements, Tudor, and Elizabethan were combined for public buildings, such as hotels and railway stations, as well as for residences. The popularity continued into the 20th century for residential building. This type of Renaissance Revival architecture is called 'Tudor,' 'Mock Tudor,' 'Tudor Revival,' and 'Jacobethan.'

References

Further reading

• Airs, Malcolm, The Buildings of Britain, A Guide and Gazetteer, Tudor and Jacobean, 1982, Barrie & Jenkins (London),
  ISBN 0091478316
  


• Airs, Malcolm, The Tudor and Jacobean Country House: A Building History, 1998, Bramley,
  ISBN 1858338336, 978-1858338330


• Garner, Thomas and Arthur James Stratton, Domestic Architecture of England during the Tudor Period. London: B.T. Batsford, 1908–1911.


• Henderson, Paula, The Tudor House and Garden: Architecture and Landscape in the Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries, 2005, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art/ Yale University Press,
  ISBN 0300106874, 978-0300106879


• Howard, Maurice, The Early Tudor Country House: Architecture and Politics 1490–1550, 1987, Hamlyn,
  ISBN 0540011193, 978-0540011193

Building by building

• 
  Jenkins, Simon, England's Thousand Best Churches, 1999, Allen Lane,
  ISBN 0-7139-9281-6
  


• 
  Jenkins, Simon, England's Thousand Best Houses, 2003, Allen Lane,
  ISBN 0-7139-9596-3
  


• 
  John Julius Norwich, The Architecture of Southern England, Macmillan, London, 1985,
  ISBN 0333220374
  

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Tudor style architecture.

• www.tudor-buildings.co.uk