page_title: Tudor architecture
section_title: Henry VIII and later
hierarchical_section_title: Tudor architecture / Typical features / Nobility, upper classes, and clerical / Henry VIII and later
caption_attribution_description: English: Georg Hoefnagel's 1568 watercolour of the south frontage of Nonsuch Palace.
context_page_description: The Tudor architectural style is the final development of Medieval architecture in England, during the Tudor period 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, 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 It followed the Late Gothic Perpendicular style and was superseded by Elizabethan architecture from about 1560 in domestic building of any pretensions to fashion.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. 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 James I in 1603, first of the House of Stuart.
  The low Tudor arch was a defining feature.
context_section_description: 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. 
  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.  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. 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.  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.  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 stain
caption: 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.
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