Durham County Record Office: the official archive service for County Durham and Darlington

Tudor Homes

Location

The location where you lived in Tudor times would depend a lot on your job. Play the game below to see if you can match people's jobs, to where in Durham they might live.

Play the 'Where would I live?' game

Type of House

Now let's think about the type of house you might live in. Just like today, rich and poor people lived in very different sorts of houses. Rich people would have had more than one house, usually on huge estates. Let's look at where ordinary people lived.

Tudor farmhouse - photograph provided by The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Chichester, West Sussex

This is a picture (provided by The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Chichester, West Sussex) of a Tudor farmhouse. You can see the beams of wood that are like the skeleton of the house, the white material in between is called wattle and daub, which is basically a mixture of sticks and mud!

Streets of a tudor town - Image provided courtesy of The National Archives

In towns and cities, like Durham, the houses were smaller and closer together (image, below, provided courtesy of The National Archives). The inside of Tudor houses looked very different to the inside of houses today.

Bedroom in medieval farmhouse - photograph provided by The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, Chichester, West Sussex

This is a picture of the bedroom (provided courtesy of The National Archives). Have a good look at what is in the room, and think about what you have in your own room. Would you like to sleep here?

Tudor hall - Image provided courtesy of The National Archives

This is a picture of the hall (provided by The Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, Chichester, West Sussex), which is a little like a living room. It was the room where the family would eat and spend time together. If you had guests in your house, this is where you would bring them.

Tudor Kitchen - Photograph provided by The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Chichester, West Sussex

This is the kitchen. It was used for making food, just like kitchens today, but it looks very different. There are no taps or sinks. You would have to collect your water from a well or stream and bring it back in a jug. There's no cooker or microwave, you would have to cook on pots over the fire.

Bread Oven - Photograph provided by The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Chichester, West Sussex

This is a picture of a bread oven (provided by The Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, Chichester, West Sussex), which is the only sort of oven most Tudors kitchens would have. The copper bowl is for keeping water warm because they didn't have kettles or hot water taps.

Tudor Buttery - Image provided courtesy of The National Archives

This is a pitcure of a room called a buttery (image provided courtesy of The National Archives). It's for storing and making wine and ale. In Tudor towns and cities, water was often not safe to drink, so more people drank ale and wine. Even children!

Where Your Character Would Live

Having looked at the information here, decide what sort of house your character would live in. Remember that your house has to fit with your job. An apprentice would not have a big, expensive house! Where would your character's house be located in Durham?

Now that we've looked at houses, let's see what sort of Tudor clothes different people wore.