Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean architecture

English architecture of the period from around 1485 to 1630. For information about English architecture of earlier periods see Gothic architecture: England.

The first stage of the change from Gothic to Renaissance is sometimes called Tudor, the period 1558-1603 is commonly known as Elizabethan, and that from 1603 to about 1630 as Jacobean.

The Renaissance movement in Italy began to influence English architecture early in the 16th century, but at first was confined to small ornamental details imported from Italy (for example the terracotta busts of Roman emperors at Hampton Court, about 1520) or carried out by imported Italian artisans (for example Torrigiano's tomb for Henry VII in Westminster Abbey, 1512). Italian ornamental features soon came to be copied by English craftsworkers, and books of engravings of the ‘Orders of Architecture’ and other Roman architectural details were produced, mainly in Germany and the Netherlands, and were studied by architects in England; their contents soon came to dominate English architecture.

Church-building had virtually come to a stop in England from about 1540 to around 1660, owing to religious turmoil and to the existence of a surplus of medieval churches, the latter being partly the result of over-building during the ‘Age of Faith’. The most important example is St John's Church, Leeds (1634), which is entirely Gothic in structure and general design, but contains magnificent Jacobean (strictly ‘Carolean’) interior woodwork fittings.

The Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean periods, however, saw a great boom and revolution in the building of houses and of grammar schools and colleges. An extreme example of the application of Roman features is the ‘Tower of the Five Orders’ (1613-18) at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, where the classical Orders are applied as mere decoration to a building with mullioned windows, battlements and pinnacles.

The Jacobean was a transitional period, with Renaissance influence becoming more pronounced. Hatfield House (1607-12) in Hertfordshire is Jacobean, so also is Blickling Hall in Norfolk, redesigned around a medieval moated house and completed in 1628. Both were designed by the architect Robert Lyminge.

For information about English architecture of later periods see English Renaissance and English architecture.