Tudor Revival architecture
Tudorbethan is a subset of Tudor Revival architecture that eliminated some of the more complex aspects of Jacobethan in favour of more domestic styles of "Merrie England", which were cosier and quaint.
Today, the term 'Tudor architecture' usually refers to buildings constructed during the reigns of the first four Tudor monarchs, between about 1485 and 1560, perhaps best exemplified by the oldest parts of Hampton Court Palace.
When the style was revived, the emphasis was typically on the simple, rustic, and the less impressive aspects of Tudor architecture, imitating in this way medieval houses and rural cottages.
While domestic and palace architecture changed rapidly according to contemporary taste, few notable churches were constructed after the Reformation; instead, old gothic buildings were retained and adapted to Protestant use.
In contexts where conservatism and traditionalism had great value (e.g., within the Church of England and at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge) building additions and annexes were often designed to blend or harmonize rather than contrast with the archaic style of the older work.
[9] Horace Walpole's Strawberry Hill House at Twickenham (1749–76; designed in collaboration with Richard Bentley, John Chute, and James Essex) features elements derived from late gothic precedents.
In the group of nine cottages at Blaise Hamlet, built around 1810–1811 by a Bristol banker for his retired employees, John Nash demonstrated a remarkably forward-looking selective appropriation of Tudor vernacular architecture such as fancy twisted brick chimney-stacks to make picturesque and comfortable middle-class homes.
At The Deanery in Berkshire, 1899, (right), where the client was the editor of the influential magazine Country Life,[17] details like the openwork brick balustrade, the many-paned oriel window and facetted staircase tower, the shadowed windows under the eaves, or the prominent clustered chimneys were conventional Tudor Revival borrowings, some of which Lutyens was to remake in his own style, that already predominates in the dark recessed entryway, the confident massing, and his signature semi-circular terrace steps.
A decorator and designer, rather than an architect, Crawley greatly expanded the original medieval hall house, Crowhurst Place in Surrey, firstly for himself and latterly for Consuelo Vanderbilt.
[22] Martin Conway, writing in Country Life, considered Crawley's reconstruction gave the remains of the original manor, "a beauty far greater than was ever theirs in the days of its newness".
The writer Olive Cook had this debased approach firmly in her sights when she attacked, "the rash of semi-detached villas, bedizened with Tudor gables, mock half-timber work, rough cast and bay windows of every shape which disfigures the outskirts of all our towns".
[27] The style was captured in John Betjeman's 1937 poem Slough, where "bald young clerks" gather: And talk of sport and makes of cars In various bogus-Tudor bars And daren't look up and see the stars.
[28] The late 20th century has seen a change in the faithfulness of emulation of the style, since in a modern development it is common to have only a few basic floor plans for buildings, these combined with variations in interior surface treatment and in the exterior in rooflines and setbacks to provide a visual variety to the street view.
Owing to the smaller lots employed in modern developments (especially in the Western US), Tudor Revival may be placed directly next to an unrelated style such as French or Italian Provincial, resulting in an eclectic mix.
The style has also been deployed for commercial developments; the architectural historian Anthony Quiney describes the Broadway Centre in the London borough of Ealing, "dressed out with brick and tile, arches, gables and small window panes, all to put a smile on a friendly face - the mask of tradition".
Rejecting mass production that was introduced by industry at that time, the Arts and Crafts movement, closely related to Tudorbethan, drew on simple design inherent in aspects of its more ancient styles, Tudor, Elizabethan and Jacobean.
[38] Confusingly, it was then promptly named "Queen Anne style", when in reality it combined a revival of Elizabethan and Jacobean design details including mullioned and oriel windows.
"Tudorbethan" took it a step further, eliminated the hexagonal or many-faceted towers and mock battlements of Jacobethan, and applied the more domestic styles of "Merrie England", which were cosier and quaint.
[44] From the 1880s onward, Tudor Revival concentrated more on the simple but quaintly picturesque Elizabethan cottage, rather than the brick and battlemented splendours of Hampton Court or Compton Wynyates.
Large and small houses alike with half-timbering in their upper storeys and gables were completed with tall ornamental chimneys, in what was originally a simple cottage style.
[45] Simon Jenkins suggests that Ascott, "a half-timbered, heavily gabled, overgrown cottage, proves the appeal of Tudor to every era and condition of England".
Pearson went to considerable lengths to source genuine Elizabethan building materials for the cottages, including stone, tiles and bricks,[51] leading Astor to comment; "I could not believe they had been built a few short months ago, they looked so old and crooked".
The Tudor Revival style was considered passé and was replaced by the fashionable Curzon Street Baroque sweeping away the inglenook fireplaces and heavy oak panelling.
[63] Lord Moyne's wife, Evelyn, a society hostess, employed the amateur architect Amyas Philips to create a house inspired by the medieval Baliffscourt Chapel which stood on the site.
[64] The novelist E. F. Benson satirised the style in his book Queen Lucia; "the famous smoking-parlour, with rushes on the floor, a dresser ranged with pewter tankards, and leaded lattice-windows of glass so antique that it was practically impossible to see out of them...sconces on the walls held dim iron lamps, so that only those of the most acute vision were able to read".
