Turner looks north east towards the Great Lines above Chatham, visible here slightly towards the left. They mark the otherwise largely blank expanse of hillside with a distinctive, angular wound. The view describes the opposite perspective to the one represented in the watercolour
Chatham, from Fort Pitt of about 1830 (private collection)
2 engraved in 1832 as part of the ambitious
Picturesque Views in England and Wales project of the 1820s and 1830s (Tate impressions:
T04588–T04589,
T05089). The tower of the Royal Dockyard Church, visible at far left in the watercolour and engraving, seems apparent at far right in this sketch. A darkly shaded shape, presumably a tree, is evident to the right of the church. The same arrangement is recorded in the top drawing on the facing page, folio 21 verso (
D17401), although the distance between the two forms is somewhat further. The foreground of the present sketch is dedicated to detailed drawings of a wide variety of vessels. These range from a stout hulk at left, to a pair of light craft indicated at far right, with the interlinking space populated by what are probably ships of the line.