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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner West Tanfield Church, Marmion Tower and Bridge 1816

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 43 Verso:
West Tanfield Church, Marmion Tower and Bridge 1816
D10947
Turner Bequest CXLIV 43a
Pencil on white wove paper, 154 x 97 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is the left half of a double-page spread continued to the right on folio 44 (D10948), opposite, recording the view looking east down the River Ure to West Tanfield, with the tower of Tanfield Church, the Marmion Tower immediately to the right and the bridge beyond. The ensemble survives almost unchanged. A closer view from a similar aspect follows on folio 44 verso (D10949); this also includes architectural details relating to features visible in this sketch.
West Tanfield stands on the Ure between Ripon and Masham, a mile or two downstream of Hackfall woods, Turner’s previous subject in this sketchbook (D10946). The Marmion Tower is a fifteenth-century gatehouse to the now-disappeared Tansfield Manor (or Castle), the home of the Marmion family. Turner’s sketch records substantial masonry by the river before the church and tower, possibly some part of the old manor. The Yorkshire 3 sketchbook, which Turner used on the same tour in 1816, has a sketch of West Tanfield Bridge from the opposite side, looking upstream (Tate D11395; Turner Bequest CXLVI 16a).

David Hill
January 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘West Tanfield Church, Marmion Tower and Bridge 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-west-tanfield-church-marmion-tower-and-bridge-r1144135, accessed 20 September 2024.