Several important developments that took place in late medieval England had their effect on domestic building. First of all, the revolution in the English Church meant that a lot of church property including the monastic buildings came into the hands of landowners and the Crown. The landowners among whom were yeomen farmers were further enriched by rents and wool sales resulting from the arrival of sheep farming and the decline of serfdom. Another important factor was the arrival of new building materials: bricks and glass. By the 1520s English brick making was already well developed. Last but not least, the Italian Renaissance had its influence on Tudor England. Italy was the ultimate source of the new style, but it increasingly arrived in England via France and the Low Countries, more so as the Reformation soon drove a wedge between Italy and England. Truly Renaissance architecture came only a century later. In Tudor England there was no interest in or understanding of the fundamental principles of Renaissance architecture. Whether it was a brand-new house, a converted monastery or an updated castle, there was no sign of the Renaissance ideals of proportion and a unified whole. The Tudor style, as the first English Renaissance style came to be called, prevailed during the reigns of Henry VII, Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. It was the first of the transitional styles between Gothic Perpendicular and Palladian architecture, which basically took over from the Italian Renaissance the new decorative repertory, just several isolated features, such as, for example, the roundels of the Roman emperors on the facade of Hampton Court Palace. [32] The early Tudor country house, in spite of the use of antique decoration, retained its late medieval appearance, including a moat, crenellation, chimney stacks, turrets and towers.

In England the appearance of the new style in domestic architecture occurred within the orbit of the court. The tone was set by the monarch, first and foremost by Henry VIII. A great transformation occurred in the 1530s and 1540s, carried through on the vast wealth confiscated from the Church. In 1509 Henry VIII had inherited 13 palaces and houses; when he died in 1547 he left 56 residences densely concentrated in the south-east. The most important of these residences were Hampton Court, Whitehall, Nonsuch, Richmond Palace and Greenwich Palace. Ј62,000 (about Ј18 million in today’s money) was spent on Hampton Court, Ј43,000 on Whitehall and Ј23,000 on Nonsuch. These palaces were to provide the setting for the monarchy until the Civil War; most of them have not survived: Whitehall, for example, burnt to the ground in 1698, while Nonsuch was demolished in the late 17th century. Hampton Court is undoubtedly the finest example of a well-preserved Tudor palace. It was originally built for Wolsey and later transformed for Henry VIII. [30; 31]

Hampton Court has all the typical features of what is sometimes called a Tudor courtyard house. The courtyard house is a domestication and regularization of the free-shaped medieval castle. It was at first H-shaped, but in the second half of the 16th century gradually became E-shaped. With its low four-centered archway, pepperpot corner turrets, bay or oriel windows [33], the courtyard house was to become the model not only for Hampton Court, but also for St. James’s Palace, Eton, many colleges of Oxford and Cambridge and numerous manor houses. The rise of new trading and sheep-farming families to wealth resulted in the building of many manor houses. In these the fortified character of earlier times gave way to increased domesticity and privacy. The owners themselves were essentially the designers. Though the Great Hall still remained the focus of the building, its importance now decreased with the introduction of other rooms fitted with oak paneling. Domestic exteriors exhibited mullioned windows, four-centered arches, pinnacled gables, bay or oriel windows, and numerous chimneys of decorative form. The royal palaces would have pinnacles on which sat the inevitable royal beasts. The finest examples of Tudor manor houses are Sutton Place, Surrey and Compton Wynyates, Warwick.