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

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).