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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
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Joseph Mallord William Turner A Distant View of Worcester; Old St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury; Figures on Richmond Hill ?1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Distant View of Worcester; Old St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury; Figures on Richmond Hill’ ?1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 89 Verso:
A Distant View of Worcester; Old St Chad’s Church, Shrewsbury; Figures on Richmond Hill ?1831
D22316
Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 88a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 191 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘S Chads’ towards bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
At the top left is a distant prospect of Worcester Cathedral with the Malvern Hills beyond to the south-west. For other views of the city, see under folio 2 verso (D22154).
As Ian Warrell noted, at the bottom left, drawn with the page turned vertically, is a view of St Chad’s, Shrewsbury.1 The small structure is all that remains of Old St Chad’s Church, which collapsed in 17882 leaving the truncated east end seen today, standing in its churchyard above the junction of Milk Street and Princess Street. To the north-east are the tower of St Julian’s Church (now St Julian’s Centre) and the church spires of St Alkmund’s and St Mary the Virgin beyond, although the immediate view is obscured by a tree and later buildings. At right-angles is a separate study of Old St Chad’s from the north-east. For the Georgian church of the same dedication which was built west of the town centre, see folio 13 verso (D22174); and for other Shrewsbury views, see under folio 12 verso (D22172).
Upside down towards the right are buildings and figures continued from the view from Richmond Hill on folio 90 recto opposite (D22317; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 89), under which the subject is discussed.

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
Ian Warrell, notes from 1993 and later in Tate catalogue files.
2
See ‘History of St Chad’s with St Mary’s, Shrewsbury’, St Chad’s Shrewsbury, accessed 14 April 2014, http://stchadschurchshrewsbury.com/building-for-the-future/history/.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Distant View of Worcester; Old St Chad’s Church, Shrewsbury; Figures on Richmond Hill ?1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-distant-view-of-worcester-old-st-chads-church-shrewsbury-r1148964, accessed 16 April 2024.