Issue 12

Popular perceptions of what Tudor buildings looked like are strongly shaped by the mainly monochrome colours of what remains today. But the reality - of highly decorated, and often very colourful, interiors - is very different. Dr Emma J. Wells looks at the fascinating world of Tudor wall paintings.

Opposition to the religious changes introduced in the 1530s and, in particular, the dissolution of the monasteries exploded into outright rebellion in 1536, in one of the biggest threats to Henry VIII's reign, known as the Pilgrimage of Grace. Dr Kirsten Claiden-Yardley explores the places connected to these risings across northern England.

The Tudor period was a golden age for Cambridge University. It received extensive royal patronage and saw the construction of some of England's finest surviving Tudor buildings. Julian Humphrys looks at Tudor Cambridge and in particular at the eight colleges that were founded there at that time.

When William Parker (abbot 1514 - 1539) commissioned his burial chapel, he ensured it was in a prominent position and adjacent to the tombs of a king, and a prince of Mercia. Sally Annesley looks at the tomb and what it tells us about this interesting man.

In its heyday, Otford Palace in Kent, built for William Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury at the beginning of the sixteenth century, matched Hampton Court in size and splendour. It was left to decay in subsequent centuries but luckily some remnants remain. Dr Elizabeth Norton explores the history and ruins of this once magnificent palace.

Julian Bell is the Curator at Weald & Downland Living Museum. an open-air museum in the South Downs National Park in West Sussex, it tells the story of the built environment, landscape and domestic and working lives of rural communities since Saxon times.