Vernacular architecture

Little survives of the vernacular architecture of the medieval period due to the use of perishable materials. Most domestic buildings were built on timber frames, usually with wattle and daub infill. Roofs were typically covered with thatch; wooden shingles were also employed, and from the 12th century tile and slate came into use in some areas. Also around the 12th century, the cruck frame was introduced, increasing the size of timber framed vernacular buildings. Typically, houses of this period were based around a great hall open from floor to roof. One bay at each end was split into two storeys and used for service rooms and private rooms for the owner. Buildings surviving from this period included moated manor houses of which Ightham Mote is a notable late medieval example, and Wealden hall houses such as Alfriston Clergy House.

Tudor transition

Montacute House, near Yeovil, Somerset. Built 1598

The Tudor period constitutes a transitional phase, in which the organic continuity and technical innovation of the medieval era gave way to centuries in which architecture was dominated by a succession of attempts to revive earlier styles.

The Perpendicular Gothic style reached its culmination in the reign of Henry VII and the early years of Henry VIII, with the construction of King's College Chapel, Cambridge and Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster Abbey. However, the Reformation brought an effective halt to church-building in England which continued in most parts of the country until the 19th century.

By the time of Henry VII's accession castle-building in England had come to an end and under the Tudors ostentatious unfortified country houses and palaces became widespread, built either in stone or in brick, which first became a common building material in England in this period. Characteristic features of the early Tudor style included imposing gatehouses (a vestige of the castle), flattened pointed arches in the Perpendicular Gothic manner, square-headed windows, decoratively shaped gables and large ornate chimneys. Outstanding surviving examples of early Tudor palatial architecture include Hampton Court Palace and Layer Marney Tower.

Over the course of the 16th century Classical features derived from the Renaissance architecture of Italy exerted an increasing influence, initially on surface decoration but in time shaping the entire design of buildings, while the use of medieval features declined. This development gave rise to palatial stone dwellings such as Hardwick Hall and Montacute House.

Style revivals

The Queen's House, Greenwich

During the 17th century the continuing advance of Classical forms overrode the eclecticism of English Renaissance architecture, which gave way to a more uniform style derived from continental models, chiefly from Italy. This entailed a retreat from the structural sophistication of Gothic architecture to forms derived from the more primitive construction methods of Classical antiquity. The style was typified by square or round-headed windows and doors, flat ceilings, colonnades, pilasters, pediments and domes. Classical architecture in England tended to be relatively plain and simple in comparison with the contemporaneous Baroque architecture of the continent, being influenced above all by the Palladian style of Italy. This was first introduced to England by Inigo Jones and typified by his Queen's House at Greenwich.

The dome of St. Paul's cathedral designed by Sir Christopher Wren

The Great Fire of London in 1666 forced the reconstruction of much of the city, which was the only part of the country to see a significant amount of church-building between the Reformation and the 19th century. Sir Christopher Wren was employed to replace many of the destroyed churches, but his master plan for rebuilding London as a whole was rejected. Wren's churches exemplify the distinctive English approach to church-building in the Classical manner, which largely rejected the domes that typified the continental Baroque and employed a wide range of different forms of steeple, experimental efforts to find a substitute for the Gothic spire within a Classical mode. However, a dome featured very prominently in Wren's grandest construction, St Paul's Cathedral, the only English cathedral in any permutation of the Classical tradition.

The later 17th century saw Baroque architecture, a version of Classicism characterised by heavy massing and ostentatiously elaborate decoration, become widespread in England. Grand Baroque country houses began to appear in England in the 1690s, exemplified by Chatsworth House and Castle Howard. The most significant English Baroque architects after Wren were Sir John Vanbrugh and Nicholas Hawksmoor, who adapted the Baroque style to fit English tastes in houses such as Blenheim Palace, Seaton Delaval Hall and Easton Neston.