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

Turner has divided the page into four, though the vertical and horizontal divisions are not continuous. The top-left section is blank. Although there is a faint line running down from the centre across the lower half of the page, the townscape there is a continuous panorama. The view at the top left is from a similar viewpoint.

St Peter’s Church is seen to the south-east across the valley of the River Exe. An undated engraving by Owen after G. Shepherd and a lithograph after L.E. Reed of about 1830, Tiverton: From the Fields near Prescott, show similar views with factories in the foreground (Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter), including the block shown in the foreground here, which appears to be the original 1791 cotton mill taken over in 1816 by John Heathcoat to manufacture lace.1 The extensive modern buildings of Heathcoat Fabrics now occupy the site.

There are further views of Tiverton on folio 74 recto opposite (D09769), and probably on folio 72 verso (D09766).