TUDOR STYLE

   English architecture from the Tudor Period (1485-1603) combined elements from the late Gothic Perpendicular and the Renaissance styles to create a uniquely regional style favored in England from the Renaissance and in the United States up until the early 20th century. Campus buildings at Oxford and Cambridge reveal a Gothic Revival style with Tudor elements, such as the four-centered arch and the oriel windows that project out from the wall. Hampton Court Palace, built in southwest London in 1515-1521, is a good example of the Tudor style in its references to late Gothic elements. The most characteristic examples of the Tudor style, however, are found in domestic buildings that employ wood, brick, and thatching. Tudor houses are characterized by a wattle-and-daub construction with the addition of decorative half timbering or brick on the walls, placed in horizontal, vertical, and diagonal patterns. William Shakespeare's mother, Mary Arden, was born in a Tudor-style farmhouse built in the early 1500s outside of Stratford-Upon-Avon, which is preserved today as a museum of the Tudor period. The half-timber exterior wall decorations signaled a high level of prosperity among the rural families who constructed such homes in the Renaissance.

   See also TUDOR REVIVAL STYLE.