Tudor Style Homes

A Mainstay in Suburbs
Across the United States

This architecture was popular in the 1920s and 1930s and continues to be a mainstay in suburbs across the United States. The defining characteristics are half-timbering on bay windows and upper floors, and facades that are dominated by one or more steeply pitched cross gables. Patterned brick or stone walls are common, as are rounded doorways, multi-paned casement windows, and large stone chimneys. A subtype of the Tudor Revival style is the Cotswold Cottage. With a sloping roof and a massive chimney at the front, a Cotswold Cottage may remind you of a picturesque storybook home.

The Tudor style in architecture is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period (1485–1603) and even beyond, for conservative college patrons. It followed the Perpendicular style and, although superseded by Elizabethan architecture in domestic building of any pretensions to fashion, the Tudor style still retained its hold on English taste, portions of the additions to the various colleges of Oxford and Cambridge being still carried out in the Tudor style which overlaps with the first stirrings of the Gothic Revival.

What a fantastic book, Tudor Style: Tudor Revival Houses in America from 1890 to the Present- The Tudor Style house is an America keystones, the sort of house that has been attracting homeowners for over a a century. The basic elements, leaded glass mullioned windows, the steep pitch gabled roofs, and the half-timbering-- are recognizable instantly. The iconic. Tudor Style displays the wide array of Tudor homes showing ways in which the American Tudor style is unique from their English equivalents. Well known photographer Paul Rocheleau along with Lee Goff, architectural historian have traveled the nation, photographing the distinctive Tudor styles every geographic region offers. The Tudors shown in the book vary from modest type homes to grandiose estates

The four-centered arch, now known as the Tudor arch, was a defining feature; some of the most remarkable oriel windows belong to this period; the moldings are more spread out and the foliage becomes more naturalistic. 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.

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

Domestic buildings


Tudor Style Home
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 which was typical of earlier medieval architecture. Instead, fireplaces could now be placed upstairs and it became possible to have a second storey that ran the whole length of the house. Tudor chimney-pieces were made large and elaborate to draw attention to the owner's adoption of this new technology, and the jetty appeared, as a way to show off the modernity of having a complete, full-length upper floor.

The style of large houses moved away from the defensive architecture of earlier moated manor houses, and started to be built more for aesthetics. For example, quadrangular, 'H' or 'E' shaped plans became more common. 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.

The houses and buildings of ordinary people were typically timber framed, the frame usually filled with wattle and daub but occasionally with brick. These houses were also slower to adopt latest trends and the great hall continued to prevail. The Dissolution of the Monasteries provided surplus land, resulting in a small building boom, as well as a source of stone.

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See also