What materials were Tudor houses made from?

Answer 1

From the early 1500s brick began to be used by the wealthy to build houses. Ralph Sadlier, a court official and Henry VIII's ambassador to Scotland built Sutton House in Homerton in 1535. Sutton House is still standing today and is now a museum. It is a very impressive house now but it would have seemed magnificent to ordinary people in Tudor times with its brick walls, huge hall and wood panelled rooms.
It was during this time that glass emerged as a material for domestic buildings. It was still very expensive though and difficult to produce in large pieces so windows were made from many small panes of glass held together in a grid or lattice pattern. They were usually casement windows so air could be let in and rubbish etc could be thrown out.

Hoxton, just outside the north east city wall, was still countryside at this time and as it was away from the dirt, noise and disease but close enough to the city for business and leisure pursuits it was the perfect place for the gentry to live. Over twenty grand houses were built on Hoxton Street during this time, and surrounded by fields and trees it must have been very pleasant.

Balmes House, built around 1540 to the west of Kingsland road, was another grand home. By the time of the Stuart period it belonged to Sir Whitmore and is mentioned in Pepys' diary in 12th May 1667, "... to Sir G Whitmore's house, where we light and walked over the fields to Kingsland and back again, a walk I think I have not taken these twenty years but puts me in mind of my boy's time, when I boarded at Kingsland and used to shoot with my bow and arrow in those fields."

Of course most people did not live in great houses like these. In the country people still lived in wattle and daub houses with thatch roofs like they had for hundreds of years. Although sometimes now they had an upstairs and were a bit bigger they still could not afford bricks and tiles and glass in the windows. Inside most peasants' homes were as spartan as on the outside. Aside from cooking implements and matting to sleep on there would have been very little else, if anything.

Answer 2

Yes, the light-colored exterior is probably stucco with tudor style trim. Brick is a more expensive construction material but it is virtually maintenance free for many years which makes it cost-effective in the long run. Stone is another good exterior veneer but it's more difficult to install and it can be quite costly to purchase.

Answer 3

Tudorbethan architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Tudor style made one of its first appearances in Britain at Cragside, a ... houses alike with half timbering in their upper storeys and gables were ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mock_Tudor

Answer 4

Building Materials. All you have to do is go into Home Depot and look up at the hanging signs and you will see the one marked "Building Materials". Walk on over and take a closer look.

Answer 5

Tudor Architecture in England 1500-1575

Typical half-timbered Tudor house
One of the most startling transformations in the history of English architecture took place in the Tudor period. It was not, however, a transformation in style. Buildings were still largely Gothic in form; at least during the first half century of the Tudor period. Instead the transformation was a social one; building effort now went towards secular, rather than ecclesiastical buildings.

There are several reasons for this change. One is simple; there were plenty of churches for the needs of the population of England. More profoundly, the church was no longer the force it had been in the medieval period. The growing unpopularity of the church, with its perceived worldliness and wealth, meant that those with money to spend now spent it on themselves.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII meant that there were large areas of land freed up for exploitation by the newly wealthy gentry class. New farms were built upon former monastic lands, and labourers' cottages for tenants who worked the land.

Curiously, changes in architectural style resulted in buildings shrinking; becoming more intimate. Rather than the move towards spaciousness so evident in the late Gothic period, Tudor architecture focussed on details. Windows and doors were smaller, but more ornately decorated, more complex. The smartly pointed arch of the Gothic period gave way to the flattened Tudor arch. The most striking window treatment to emerge in the Tudor period is the oriel, a projecting, multi-sided window cantilevered out from an upper floor, and supported on a bracket or corbel from beneath.


Tudor Chimney
Chimneys and enclosed fireplaces became common for the first time. Indeed, the Tudor chimney is one of the most striking aspects of this period. One of the reasons for the increased use of chimneys was the widespread adoption of coal as fuel. Previously wood smoke was allowed to escape from the interior through a simple hole in the roof. Now, the increased smoke from coal made necessary evolved forms of fireplaces, flues, and chimneys to get the smoke away from the living space. Chimney stacks were often clustered in groups, and the individual chimney columns were curved, twisted, and decorated with chequerboard patterns of different-coloured bricks.

And that brings up a second noticeable characteristic of Tudor architecture; the use of brick in building. Spreading from East Anglia, where it had been introduced from the Low Countries in the late medieval period, brick became one of the most common building materials. Some bricks were imported into England, brought back in ships that exported English wool to the continent. Others were made in brickyards established in East Anglia by Dutch immigrants.

It may seem strange to the modern reader, but brick was originally a luxury item. Only those at the top of the social and economic spectrum could afford to build in brick. The most remarkable Tudor brick building is Hampton Court Palace, but a multitude of smaller estates and country houses made use of this newly fashionable luxury material.

In several areas of England, notably Cheshire, Lancashire, and Warwickshire, wooden houses, generally in oak, are more numerous than brick. Wood was used to create a skeleton which was filled in with brick or plaster. Bricks were often laid in a herringbone pattern, made possible because they had no structural responsibilities; the wooden posts took the strain and the bricks served as decorative infill. A hybrid form saw the lower story built in stone, with wood used for the upper stories.

Where bricks were too expensive plaster was the infill of choice, resulting in the typical "black-and-white" small Tudor house, whitewashed plaster set between blackened oak timbers. Often the upper stories of these houses projected above the lower floors, particularly in towns, where ground-floor space was at a premium and the house owner might be taxed according to street frontage.


A simple Tudor window and moulding
Even in wooden houses, though, window and doors are similar to the stone designs, with small arches capped by simple squared-off mouldings.

The great houses of the Tudor period featured fanciful gatehouses. The idea was to create an impressive, awe-inspiring entrance. This was accomplished by entry through a broad, low arch flanked by tall octagonal towers decorated with ornate false battlements. Above the entry arch many houses prominently featured a family coat of arms.


Linen fold paneling
The most obvious feature of interior decoration is the widespread use of oak panelling. This panelling often extends from floor to ceiling. The most common motif used for the panelling was the linen-fold, a raised carving imitating folds of cloth. The term "linen-fold" is a 19th century one; at the time this pattern was termed "lignum undulatum", or "wavy woodwork".