Tudor architecture

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.^[9]

This burnt to the ground at Christmas 1497. However, within months Henry began a magnificent new palace in a version of Renaissance style. This, called

Henry VII was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII, a man of a very different character of his father, who spent enormous amounts of money 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.^[10] 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

As time wore on, quadrangular, H- or E-shaped

Henry began his reign as "Defender of the Faith." Such a title was given him in 1520 by Pope Leo X,^[13] however long before this he had deep roots in Catholic piety. Both his parents were staunchly Catholic and in fact at least one aunt, Bridget of York, became a nun. There are ample records in British royal archives of how Henry VII and his queen spent their time away from political activity. Henry VII spent a large amount of time hearing Mass every day and was noted for being quite pious, according to Polydore Vergil.^[14] Elizabeth of York was heavily involved in charity, then as now one of the three great virtues of the Catholic Church, evidenced by the king loaning her money when she overspent her budget on the poor and orphaned in account books that survive. As his older brother Arthur was the one expected to rule, and not Henry, his parents selected an education for him that would have prepared him for the Church: he was tutored heavily in theology.^[15] This fateful decision later in life made him able to debate the usefulness of the clergy owning so much land and power outside the crown, and changed which version of the faith he defended.

A part of Henry VIII's 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

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

Henry and Edward are responsible for enormous losses and gaps in the cultural record; the damage was massive. Manuscripts, many of them illuminated, were lost, with many being burned. Some of these went back to the time of the Anglo-Saxons, but as few could read the runic alphabet (including the king himself) they were destroyed and their intricate covers, sometimes bejeweled, were looted. Distinctly English styles of craftsmanship in religious metalwork for chalices, bishops' croziers, patens, and cruets were melted down for the crown.

During this period, the arrival of the chimney stack and enclosed hearths resulted in the decline of the

• An E- or H-shaped floor plan
• stone masonry, sometimes with half timbers
  on upper floors in grand houses earlier in the period
• Recycling of older medieval stone, especially after
  Dissolution of the Monasteries
  . Some reuse of monastery buildings as houses.
• Curvilinear gables, an influence taken from Dutch designs, from the mid-century
• Displays of glass in large windows several feet long; only the rich could afford numerous expensive large windows. Heraldic stained glass was provided by Galyon Hone and others
• Depressed arches in clerical and aristocratic design, especially in the early-middle portion of the period
• 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
  balustrades from time of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I
• Large brick
  chimney pots
  in the homes of the upper middle class and higher. Ordinary medieval village houses were often made much pleasanter to live in by the addition of brick fireplaces and chimneys, replacing an open hearth.
• Wide, enormous stone
  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. Cornelius van der Strete added arms and ciphers to royal tapestries.^[18]
• 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.
• Arms- The Tudor dynasty is famous for using its Tudor rose as a decorative device, but also the royal coat of arms was in use throughout the period as a p.r. and marketing tool and today is an important marker that dates a structure, singles it out from any other coat of arms, and if authentic can prove its provenance: it would have been a feature of the furniture as well as ironwork. Very specific to royalty, the royal coat of arms of the House of Tudor would have been distinct from all others that have sat the throne: in common with most royal houses, the three lions passant and the fleur de lys pattern did impale the shield, with the motto of "God and my right." In common with all arms since Edward III, they all have the gold lion passant guardant standing upon a chapeau, bearing a royal crown on its head. However, this period specifically hd the Greyhound Argent collared Gules plus a matching red dragon gules sinister garnished and armed Or, a nod to the Welsh origins of the House of Tudor and Henry VII's claim to be the heir of Cadwaldr. For Henry VII, the dragon occasionally would have been replaced with a lion rampant and had red mantling lined with ermine; this distinguishes it from his son, Henry VIII, who lined his with gold. Mary I had the black eagle rampant sinister as a supporter, a nod to her marriage to Philip II of Spain.

Lower classes

The houses and buildings of ordinary people were typically timber framed. Timber framing on the upper floors of a house started appearing after 1400 CE in Europe and originally it was a method used to keep water from going back into the walls, instead being redirected back to the soil.^[19][20] 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.^[17] Fireplaces were quite large by modern standards, and intended to heat as much of the home as possible as well as cook upon them because in this period England was much more prone to snow.

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
  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
• 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
• 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
  middle class and gentry
• Outhouses
  in the back of the home, especially beyond cities in market towns, often referred to as "the jakes" in documents that survive. 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

Institutional

Ecclesiastical