Reformed Victorian / Tudorbethan
Tudorbethan (Tudor Gothic, Tudor Revival) 1890–1920
These English-inspired houses are part of the same architectural movement that spawned the English Queen Anne style, the Shingle Style, and American Queen Anne houses. It marks a transition between late Victorian sensibility and the beginning of modern architecture, including Arts and Crafts.
The 1904 house shown below was once advertised by a real-eastate agent as “Gothic Revival.” Some might see allusions to the Shingle Style. Though this house has aspects of the Queen Anne, it’s not at all like the vertical, turreted, gingerbread Victorians of that style. Neither is it helpful simply to call it Tudor, a label associated with the squarish suburban homes (never shingled) of the Twenties and Thirties. With its clipped gable, long façade, steep roofs, attempt at half-timbering, and shallow oriels (window bays), such houses are vaguely Elizabethan (see definition below). So how about the melodious, not-entirely-serious title Tudorbethan?
For ideas on interiors, see the style sections headed Queen Anne, Shingle Style, and Tudor Revival.
Interpreting Tudor
This house, built on a crag near the Atlantic in New England, suggests that the American Shingle Style is a variant of the English Queen Anne wrapped in wood. Steep intersecting gables, balconies, and the suggestion of timber framing mark its English antecedents.
On a Long Island Arts and Crafts-era house designed in the Elizabethan Revival mode, motifs from the English and American Queen Anne styles recur.
Distinctly Tudor elements define a shingled house built early in the 20th century.
A Place Among Tudors (a glossary)
Tudor— refers to the first half of the 16th century and the reigns of the Tudor monarchs [1485–1558]: Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Mary I. Like Elizabethan and Jacobean, Tudor falls between the Perpendicular Gothic before it and the classical Palladian style that would follow. Houses of the Tudor period are known for their domesticity; less like the fortresses of the past, they offered specialized rooms for study, dining, and sleeping. Finishes included linen-fold paneling and plaster relief ceilings. Mullioned (divided) windows and oriels, flattened Tudor arches, brickwork combined with half-timber constructon, tall gables, and decorative chimneys predominated.
Tudor Gothic— suggests the continuing influence of the Gothic during the early Tudor period. Turning their attention to domestic building, church craftsman continued in the Gothic tradition but began to adapt Renaissance motifs. Heavy (timber) construction predominated.
Elizabethan— the “golden era” defined by the reign of Queen Elizabeth I [1558–1603]. Literature and poetry flourished in this time of Shakespeare and the English Renaissance. The style designation “Tudor” is often assumed to include this period’s influence.
Jacobean— a reference to the reign of King James I [1603–1625]. It is the second, more obviously Renaissance period of English architecture, after the Elizabethan
Jacobethan— a word coined in the 1930s to refer to English Revival architecture after 1830 that combined elements of Elizabethan and Jacobean architecture. In the early 20th century, American “baronial” houses were called Jacobethan.
Tudor Revival— understood to be a conscious, romantic revival of late- and post-medieval, vernacular architecture, starting with designer William Morris and architect Richard Norman Shaw in England during the 19th century. The sweeping, so-named Tudor Revival in America was an Anglophile phenomenon in the suburbs of the 1920s and later. Another Tudor Revival occurred during the 1970s; those houses were often called Mock Tudor. A minor Tudor Revival is in effect right now.
Stockbroker Tudor— a pointed reference to the bourgeois houses of the 1920s built by conservative new money.
References
For inspiration, learn more about the historic houses and architects mentioned below at the library and at such sites as wikipedia.org, amazon.com, and nationaltrust.org/uk/
BRITISH ARCHITECTS M.H. Baillie Scott • Sir Edwin L. Lutyens • Richard Norman Shaw • Philip Webb
U.S. ARCHITECTS William Ralph Emerson • Wilson Eyre • Bruce Price • H.H. Richardson • John Calvin Stevens
HOUSES Blackwell • Cragside • Standen • Watts–Sherman House • Wightwick Manor
Recommended Books
Arts & Crafts Homes of Great Britain
by Brian D. Coleman: Gibbs Smith, 2005
A guide to the great Arts and Crafts houses of England’s vernacular revival period.
Tudor Style: Tudor Revival Houses in America from 1890 to the Present
by Lee Goff: Universe Publishing, 2002.
From New York to Lake Forest (IL) and St. Louis to Los Angeles, here are notable Tudor houses that span decades, including new houses in the English Tudor mold. The first and only book devoted to American Tudor style.
The English House: English Country Houses and Interiors
Rizzoli, 2004
Real English houses from the Georgian Palladian era to 20th-century cottage. Good for background in English architectural motifs and decorating.
