Tudor bedrooms varied significantly based on wealth, but generally, they were designed for warmth, privacy, and social status, often featuring multi-functional spaces where people also worked or entertained. The bed was the most important and expensive item in the household.
The bedroom was actually a very social and public place – the opposite of how we see it today. You would have all sorts of communal activities in your bedspace, including courtship – but more on that in a bit. So for the vast majority of history, people slept communally.
The larger and heavier your bed, the higher up the social ladder you were, especially when adorned with silk and other luxury fabrics. Tudor beds were constructed using English oak or walnut and were so valuable that they were often bequeathed in the will as a prized possession to be passed on.
However, during the Tudor and Stuart periods, curtains of expensive silk, velvet and brocades (fancy woven patterned fabrics) were imported and used as a means of displaying wealth and importance.
The most obvious design feature in a Tudor home is the oak timbers on show. Often coloured black and white, these showcase the building materials used in the construction. They were joined together with tight fitting joints and wooden pegs. In between there was the classic wattle and daub, which was then whitewashed.
Inside the Tudor bedroom: love and marriage in the 16th-century
Did Tudor houses have toilets?
Well into the 20th century, many ordinary homes didn't possess flushing loos, making do with outside 'privies' set over holes in the garden or back yard. Yet the flushing toilet was invented back in Tudor times, by Queen Elizabeth I's favourite godson Sir John Harington in about 1596.
As the green oak timber dried out over time, it would twist and warp naturally. So those wonky walls and slanted beams are totally normal and part of the charm.
For women, under your dress you would have worn a simple, thin, white dress called a chemise. A chemise was seen as underwear for a lady and is the strange catalyst for history's most weird fashion item: the ruff.
Hair. Light-coloured hair was the fashion in Tudor times. Yellow hair dye was made from a mixture of saffron, cumin seed, celandine (a yellow flower) and oil. Wigs and hairpieces were also popular and Queen Elizabeth was said to own over eighty wigs, periwigs and hair pieces.
Nightgowns and nightshirts came into their own in Tudor England. Women would keep on the chemise they had worn during the day, or replace it with the clean one they would wear the next day. Men could choose to wear a shirt or nothing at all - except for the nightcap!
In a religious context, both Aldhelm and possibly these later Anglo-Saxon glossators seem to understand celibacy as akin to virginity in terms of sexual abstinence for either gender: a man or a woman can be described as celibate or as a virgin.
Tudor women certainly did wear makeup. However, during this period, it was almost exclusively reserved for the higher classes. This is because almost all of the elements of Tudor's makeup were really expensive. Many of the components even had to be imported into England.
In the 1800s, most people slept on simple straw-filled mattresses, while horsehair or cotton were slightly fancier options. Wealthier households could afford mattresses stuffed with wool or down feathers.
Water was often unfit for drinking because it was contaminated with sewage. Instead of drinking water with their meals, people drank ale or mead and the rich drank wine. The poor ate a dark bread of rye, barley, or maslin (sometimes with pea or bean flour mixed in), and herb-flavoured soup called pottage.
The 10-3-2-1-0 sleep rule is a popular guideline for better sleep, suggesting you stop caffeine 10 hours before bed, stop food/alcohol 3 hours before, stop working 2 hours before, and stop screen time 1 hour before, with the "0" meaning zero snoozes in the morning, aiming to prepare your body and mind for restorative sleep by gradually reducing stimulants and winding down activities.
Elizabeth I bathed every month, and this was considered above average, so we can imagine the average person might bathe 5-9 times a year say, depending on their access to water and their personal standards (women probably bathed more than men for example).
The "3-inch hair rule" is a hairstylist-backed guideline to help you decide if short or long hair suits you by measuring the angle from your earlobe to your chin; if the measurement is less than 3 inches (or 2.25 inches), short hair is often recommended, while more than 3 inches suggests longer styles might be more flattering, though it's a general tip, not a strict rule.
Sanitary belts were widely used, Wads of cloth with two straps on the front and back that connect to a belt around the waist. There's various evidence for using plants like moss for absorption as an alternative to pads, rudimentary tampons were used as well as free bleeding.
Why is there a bow on the front of ladies knickers?
Well, it turns out there's actually historical reason for that. A long time ago, panties did not have elastic waistbands in them. So, women had to hold them up with either a drawstring or a ribbon. They tied a little bow, kept their panties on all day, everyone was happy.
Victorians wore open-crotch undergarments (drawers) for hygiene, promoting air circulation, and, crucially, for convenient toilet use without removing multiple heavy petticoats and skirts, with the split design allowing access over a corset. These "open drawers" provided ventilation and practicality, preventing dampness and enabling quick relief, though they were hidden under layers of voluminous skirts, making exposure rare.
TIL that in parts of the UK, a rule from 1902 mandates that homes facing each other at the rear must be built 21 meters apart. This specific distance was determined by two urban designers who measured how far apart they could see each other's nipples through their shirts.
