Tudor London

Portrait of Henry VIII by Hans Holbein

Taking it altogether, Tudor London was a distinct advance upon its medieval predecessor, and at the end of the dynasty began to assume that garb of picturesqueness which it never entirely lost until the Hanoverians had been long established on the throne of England.

Under Tudor rule, great progress was made in the gentler arts, and architecture was encouraged to the utmost by Henry VII and his descendants, to whom we owe the beautiful style popularly known as Elizabethan.

A stranger, landing at Harwich, and beginning his antiquarian rambles in Suffolk, after having feasted his eyes upon such splendid specimens as Rushbrooke Hall near Bury St. Edmunds, Kentwell Hall near Sudbury, or beautiful Helmingham near Ipswich, to say nothing of twenty others in that one county alone, would naturally expect to find something of the kind in London; but he would be disappointed.

The genuine Elizabethan, with its moat and drawbridge, its gabled roof and clustered chimneys, its pinnacles, pendants, and fantastic carvings, was more in harmony with the wide-spreading and reposeful sylvan surroundings, than with a bustling city; and for this reason it was not much encouraged in London, except in its undeveloped form as Tudor.

Henry VIII seems to have been particularly fond of building gateways, one of which, designed by Holbein, at St. James' Palace, is with us to this day; but the famous one, also by Holbein, that used to stand at the north end of King Street, Westminster, was taken down in 1750.

The Gate-House at Lincoln's Inn (temp. Elizabeth), recently restored, has been described as "an admirable relic of the Tudor age."

It is built of the small red bricks peculiar to the period; and the old gates, as sound as when their oaken timbers were first brought from Henley-on-Thames, have been regularly closed at night ever since the year 1564.

But this piece of intense conservatism has been surpassed by that at Helmingham Hall, where, tradition avers, the drawbridge over the moat, by which access to the inner court is obtained, has been raised every evening for eight centuries.

Most of the older parts of St. James' Palace, besides the gateway, are Tudor.

St. Saviour's, Southwark, had some fragments of Tudor, which we must hope have been retained during its late reconstruction.

Barnard's Inn Hall, Holborn, and the Old Hall, Lincoln's Inn, are also Tudor; and at Westminster School there are portions that were built in Henry VIII's reign.

(From Imperial London, by Arthur Henry Beavan, 1901)