Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Ruins of Dudley Priory, with Priory Hall Beyond

1830

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Kenilworth Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 120 x 203 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D22016
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 23

Catalogue entry

As part of unpublished Turner research informed by local knowledge, Dr Bernard Richards has identified the ruins as Dudley Priory.1 Originating in the twelfth-century,2 the ruins now stand off The Broadway in Priory Park; only the buildings on the south side of the priory complex survive above ground level. Turner’s viewpoint corresponds with Pagenel Drive, looking north-west to the ruins in Priory Park, which remain much the same. In the distance beyond the arch at the centre stands the castellated Priory Hall, built in 1825 by the Earl of Dudley, which now serves as the town’s register office.3 It is obscured by trees from this viewpoint. There is a detail of window tracery towards the bottom left. Finberg was incorrect in his suggestion that the subject was Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle, for which see under folio 21 verso (D22012; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 21).
The town of Dudley, now in the West Midlands, was formerly in an enclave of Worcestershire at the southern end of Staffordshire, about eight miles north-west of central Birmingham. Dudley Castle, on a hill north of the centre of the town, originated in 1070. In the 1530s, John Dudley (later Duke of Northumberland) made additions including the Renaissance-style Sharington Range. Elizabeth I visited in 1575; her favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the Duke of Northumberland’s son, made comparable changes at Kenilworth Castle for the queen’s visits at that time (for Turner and Kenilworth, see under folio 29 recto; D22028). Dudley’s fortifications were slighted in 1647 during the Civil War, and the Sharington Range was badly damaged by fire in 1750, leaving the site as Turner saw it and largely as it survives today.4 In 1937 Dudley Zoo was opened, on terraced slopes encompassing the castle, with contrasting Modernist structures by Berthold Lubetkin and the Tecton Group. The limestone hill, an ancient sea-bed, is known for its fossils and is riddled with former mine workings,5 as is Wren’s Nest Hill, nearby to the north-west. The latter is now a National Nature Reserve, and its wooded slopes are protected following a history of intensive limestone mining and quarrying for building stone and lime used in mortar and fertiliser and as a purifying flux in the blast furnaces of the local iron industry.6

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Conversation with the author, 14 May 2013.
2
See ‘Priory Park, Dudley’, Midlands Heritage, accessed 24 June 2013, http://www.midlandsheritage.co.uk/miscellaneous-heritage/3445-priory-park-dudley.html.
3
Ibid.
4
See ‘Dudley Castle’, Dudley Zoological Gardens, accessed 22 July 2013, http://www.dudleyzoo.org.uk/around-dzg/dudley-castle.
5
See ‘History of the Zoo’ and ‘Tectons’, Dudley Zoological Gardens, accessed 22 July 2013, http://www.dudleyzoo.org.uk/around-dzg/history-zoo, http://www.dudleyzoo.org.uk/around-dzg/tectons.
6
See ‘Wren’s Nest National Nature Reserve’, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council, accessed 11 July 2013, http://www.dudley.gov.uk/resident/environment/countryside/nature-reserves/wrens-nest-nnrwrens-nest-nnr/; and ‘The Geology of Wren’s Nest Nature Reserve’, BGCS: The Black Country Geological Society, accessed 11 July 2013, http://www.bcgs.info/pdf_files/wrens_nest_leaflet_2009.pdf.
7
See William S. Rodner, ‘Turner’s “Dudley”: Continuity, Change and Adaptability in the Industrial Black Country’, Turner Studies, vol.8, no.1, Summer 1988, pp.32–40; and Chapter 4, ‘Urban Industrialism: Leeds, Newcastle, Shields and Dudley’ in William S. Rodner, J.M.W. Turner: Romantic Painter of the Industrial Revolution, Berkeley and London 1997, pp.86–121, and pp.104–21 in particular, based on the Turner Studies article.
8
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.400 no.858, pl.195.
9
Frank Milner, J.M.W. Turner: Paintings in Merseyside Collections: Walker Art Gallery; Sudley Art Gallery; Williamson Art Gallery; Lady Lever Art Gallery; Liverpool University Art Gallery, Liverpool 1990, p.53 under no.26; see also subsequent accounts in James Hamilton, Turner and the Scientists, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1998, pp.97–8, James Hamilton, Turner’s Britain, exhibition catalogue, Gas Hall, Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery 2003, p.24, and Ian Warrell, in Warrell (ed.), Franklin Kelly and others, J.M.W. Turner, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington 2007, p.123.
10
See Rodner 1988, ill.5.
11
Finberg 1909, II, pp.731–2.
12
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Picturesque Views in England and Wales 1825–1838, London 1979, p.156.
13
Milner 1990, p.53.

Read full Catalogue entry

Explore

You might like

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Ruins of Dudley Priory with Dudley Castle Above’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Ruins of Dudley Priory with Dudley Castle Above

1830
View by appointment D22017
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Ruins of Dudley Priory with Dudley Castle Above’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Ruins of Dudley Priory with Dudley Castle Above

1830
View by appointment D22018
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley: The Priory, Priory Hall, and the Castle Keep’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: The Priory, Priory Hall, and the Castle Keep

1830
View by appointment D22091
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley Priory and Priory Hall from Wren’s Nest Hill’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley Priory and Priory Hall from Wren’s Nest Hill

1830
View by appointment D22085
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley: The Castle and Priory with St Thomas’s Church Beyond’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: The Castle and Priory with St Thomas’s Church Beyond

1830
View by appointment D22426
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley: The Castle, Priory Hall and St Thomas’s Church from Wren’s Nest Hill’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: The Castle, Priory Hall and St Thomas’s Church from Wren’s Nest Hill

1830
View by appointment D22087
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle with St Helen’s Church Beyond’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle with St Helen’s Church Beyond

1830
View by appointment D22067
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle from the South-West, with St Helen’s Church Beyond’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ashby-de-la-Zouch Castle from the South-West, with St Helen’s Church Beyond

1830
View by appointment D22063
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley: The Castle, Priory and St Thomas’s Church from Wren’s Nest Hill’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: The Castle, Priory and St Thomas’s Church from Wren’s Nest Hill

1830
View by appointment D22086
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley: The Castle, Priory and Priory Hall’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: The Castle, Priory and Priory Hall

1830
View by appointment D22428
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley: The Castle, Priory and Priory Hall’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: The Castle, Priory and Priory Hall

1830
View by appointment D22429
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Kenilworth Castle: The Interior of the Great Hall with the Great Tower Beyond’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Kenilworth Castle: The Interior of the Great Hall with the Great Tower Beyond

1830
View by appointment D22038
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley: The Castle and Priory with St Thomas’s Church Beyond; the Priory’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: The Castle and Priory with St Thomas’s Church Beyond; the Priory

1830
View by appointment D22427
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Ruined Gateway, Possibly at Launceston Priory’ 1814

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Ruined Gateway, Possibly at Launceston Priory

1814
View by appointment D09604
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dudley: St Edmund’s Church with the Castle Beyond’ 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: St Edmund’s Church with the Castle Beyond

1830
View by appointment D22413