Tudor House

As part of our commitment to maintaining Tudor House as a place for all to enjoy, works were carried out in 2023 to repair and protect the venue.

History and works

The Tudor House Museum was extensively refurbished as part of a Heritage Lottery funded project prior to reopening to the public in 2012. A decade later, the building was generally in a sound condition but some of the finishes, inside and out, were showing signs of wear and needed to be replaced or redecorated before they worsen. This work was carried out as part of Southampton City Council’s Heritage Assets Repair Programme (HARP), a three year programme to carry out its statutory duty of care for the Scheduled Monuments in the city.

Externally, to the front of the house, some of the decorative details of the timber frame had deteriorated and the rendered infill panels were beginning to crack. These have been repaired along with the horizontal plasterwork under the jetty on the north side of the building. Most of the painted wooden windows on the north face have been repaired and repainted. Some missing and cracked roof tiles have been replaced. Whist the scaffolding was up, we replaced the glass in the attic window peppered with shot/bolt holes.

At the back of the house, overlooking the garden, many of the window frames have been overhauled (oak window and door frames on south face repaired and re-puttied; painted windows in Georgian Bay and other parts of west face repaired and repainted, also work done on the hall window) and the render has been given a good clean and redecoration.

The works to reduce the amount of water seeping into the stone vault that was used as an air-raid shelter during World War II turned out to be a bigger job than expected. The drains were inspected and found to be in good condition, but the balcony over the steps into the vault needed to have its oak frame repaired and re-rendered. Now that this has been done, the walls should begin to dry out and it won’t be too long before visitors will be able to explore that aspect of the house’s history once more.