Hidden Tudor Gems

In 1578, a French visitor to the UK’s capital wrote: “Rumour of the greatness, prosperity, singularities and splendours of London fly and run to the ends of the whole world.” It wasn’t always so: London under the Tudors – from 1485 when Henry VII defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field until the passing of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 – changed enormously. During this period, the capital was a city on its way up in the world, as its population quadrupled from around 50,000 people in 1500 to 200,000 in 1600.

For centuries, the walled City of London in the east and Westminster in the west had been geographically distinct, but the new Tudor age would unite these two disparate settlements, creating the beginnings of the city as we know today – a hustling, bustling place with a terrible traffic problem. With the addition of Hackney coaches to the “cars, drays and