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

Witton Castle stands south of the River Wear, about four miles west of Bishop Auckland. The castle, probably dating from the late fourteenth century, was remodelled in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but remains externally much as shown here. It is now the headquarters of a caravan and leisure park occupying the extensive grounds.1 Turner’s view is from the east of the walled garden around the castle, across Witton Row Beck; the bridge has since been rebuilt. There is a slight continuation of the trees to the right on folio 16 verso opposite (D12337).

The castle had been gutted by fire in 1796 and was bought in 1816 (the year before Turner’s visit) by William Chaytor, later a baronet and MP for Sunderland, who opened a colliery on the estate in 1825.2 If the artist hoped for a commission from the new owner, none was apparently forthcoming.

The building is seen again in the view on folios 17 verso, 18 recto and 19 recto (D12339–D12341). Assuming they were the same unidentified structure, Gerald Wilkinson has described the present subject and Brancepeth Castle on folio 15 recto (D12335), each seen through ‘almost leafless’ trees, as providing ‘a theme of interpenetrating planes which Turner handles with summary skill’.3