Tudor Style

Tudor Style, in English art and architecture, designation for the period covering the reigns of the Tudor monarchs. The Tudor period began with the accession of Henry VII in 1485 and ended with the death of Elizabeth I in 1603. It was a period in which medieval forms began to give way to Renaissance ideals.

Although the decorative arts flourished during this period, as did painting—particularly in the work of the German painter Hans Holbein the Younger at the court of Henry VIII—the Tudor style was expressed mainly in residential domestic architecture. Hampton Court Palace (begun 1514), Old Somerset House (1552, London), Compton Wynyates (c. 1520, Warwickshire), and others were basically medieval structures with paved courtyards. These contained asymmetrical brick buildings with mullioned, leaded windows and uneven roof lines with towers, ornamental battlements, and chimneys that were occasionally overlaid with Renaissance decorative details such as medallions and terracotta busts.

See Elizabethan Style.