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

The small pavilion-like building on the left once stood near the north-west corner of Dartmouth’s old harbour basin. It can be seen in the distance in an 1837 engraving by Thomas Allom, a lithograph of about 1850 by William Spreat and an 1853 engraving by George Townsend (Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter), all showing similar views looking east down Duke Street past the Butterwalk, towards the area shown in Turner’s sketch from the Quay. Where Turner shows trees, Royal Avenue Gardens today run along the north side of the dock, which is only accessible to small boats without masts via a tunnel under the Embankment closing it off from the Dart Estuary. Beyond the Dart are the hills north of Kingswear.

This is one of a sequence of views around Dartmouth and the Dart Estuary between folios 50 recto and 60 recto (D09730, D09744); for sketches made in 1811, see under the first of these.