J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Totnes Church and Castle across the Racecourse 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Recto:
Totnes Church and Castle across the Racecourse 1811
D08855
Turner Bequest CXXIV 40
Pencil on white wove paper, 170 x 209 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Totness Castle and Race G d’ bottom left
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXIV – 40’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Totnes is seen from the north-east across the plain of the River Dart, with the tower of St Mary’s Church and the castle keep among the trees on the skyline to its west. The house with dormer windows below the castle still stands at the end of Priory Drive. The viewpoint is the Newton Abbott road by which Turner approached the town. It passes beside the river, and he drew the town’s bridge crossing it to the south from the same spot or nearby on folio 39 recto (D08854).
The racecourse noted in the inscription was a track forming a loop around Broad Marsh and bordered on two sides by the Dart; maps indicate its survival into the twentieth century, latterly as a golf course, but is now covered by the industrial estate off Babbage Road, screened by trees along the bank.
There are other views of Totnes in the Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D08541, D08542, D08625; Turner Bequest CXXIII 91, 91a, 136), and in the later Devon Rivers, No.2 sketchbook (Tate D09726, D09746; Turner Bequest CXXXIII 48, 61).
Verso:
Blank, save for very faint inscription by John Ruskin in red ink ‘9’ bottom left, upside down. Tears have been repaired at the top left.

Matthew Imms
February 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Totnes Church and Castle across the Racecourse 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-totnes-church-and-castle-across-the-racecourse-r1137333, accessed 28 March 2024.