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Tudorbethan architecture / Tudor Revival |
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The George W. Ellis House (1902), Hartford, Connecticut. A house in the Tudor Revival style was built on Prospect Street in Hartford in 1902 for George W. Ellis, who worked at Travelers Insurance Company. It has the diamond paned leaded windows and decorative half-timbering typical of the style, with a more unusual double front gable. | The John Schwab House (1896), Hartford, Connecticut. The John Schwab House, on Prospect Street in New Haven, was designed in the Tudor Revival style by R. Clipson Sturgis. Schwab was a professor of political economy at Yale who later became Librarian of Yale University. | The Charles Cheney House (1851), Hartford, Connecticut. The Charles Cheney House was built in the Tudor style. Tax records indicate it was built in 1851, but may have a later date, when the Tudor Revival style was popular. |
![]() Ascott House, Buckinghamshire. A "simple cottage" designed circa 1876 by George Devey. An early example of Tudorbethan The Tudorbethan Style, also called Mock Tudor in the 20th century, first manifested itself in domestic architecture in the United Kingdom in the mid to late 19th century. It later became an influence in some other countries, especially the British colonies such as New Zealand where the architect Francis Petre adapted the style for the local climate. The earliest examples of the style originate with the works of such eminent architects as Norman Shaw and George Devey, in what at the time was thought of as a neo-Tudor design. The term "Tudorbethan" is modelled on John Betjeman's 1933 coinage of the "Jacobethan" style, which he used to describe the grand mixed revival style of ca 1835–1885 that had been called things like "Free English Renaissance". "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. Identifying Tudorbethan The emphasis was on the simple, rustic and the less impressive aspects of Tudor architecture, imitating in this way the medieval cottages or country houses. Though the style follows these more modest characteristics, items such as steeply pitched roofs, half-timbering often infilled with herringbone brickwork, tall mullioned windows, high chimneys, jettied (overhanging) first floors above pillared porches, dormer windows supported by consoles, and even at times thatched roofs, gave Tudorbethan its more striking effects. Evolution The Tudorbethan style was a reaction to the ornate Victorian Gothic revival of the second half of the 19th century. Rejecting mass production that was beginning to be 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. ![]() Cragside designed by Norman Shaw in what he called a "Free Tudor" style The Tudor style made one of its first appearances in Britain at Cragside, a hilltop mansion of eclectic architectural styles, but incorporating certain Tudor features; Cragside was designed by the architect Norman Shaw. However Shaw also designed at approximately the same time Leyswood near Withham, in Sussex a large mansion around a courtyard, complete with mock battlements, towers, half timbered upper facades and tall chimneys— all features quite readily associated with Tudor architecture; in Shaw's hands this less fantastical style achieved immediate maturity. 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. Later the style began to incorporate the classicising pre-Georgian features that are generally understood to represent "Queen Anne" in Britain. The term "Queen Anne" for this style of architecture tends to be more commonly used in the USA than in Britain, in the USA it evolved into a form of architecture not instantly recognisable as that constructed in either the Tudor, or Queen Anne period. In Britain the style remained closer to its Tudor roots. Half-timbering From the 1880s onwards Tudorbethan 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. It was here that the influences of the arts and crafts movement became apparent. However, Tudorbethan cannot really be likened to the timber-framed structures of the originals in which the frame supported the whole weight of the house. Their modern counterparts consist more likely of bricks or blocks of various materials with a look-alike frame added on the outside which is really then deprived of its functional and structural weight-bearing role. An example of this is this "simple cottage" style is Ascott House in Buckinghamshire. This was designed by Devey for the Rothschild family who were among the earliest patrons and promoters of this style. ![]() Built circa 1870 two semi-detached cottages at Mentmore masquerade as one Tudor style house. Some more enlightened landlords at this time became more aware of the needs for proper sanitation and housing for their employees, and some estate villages were rebuilt to resemble what was thought to be an idyllic Elizabethan village, often grouped around a village green and pond, Mentmore in Buckinghamshire is an example of this. The Tudor revival though now concentrated on the picturesque. A very well-known example of the idealised half-timbered style is Liberty's department store in London, which was built in the style of a vast half-timbered Tudor mansion, the store specialised, among other goods, in fabrics and furnishings by the leading designers of the arts and crafts movement. 20th century Tudorbethan
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