Joseph Mallord William Turner

Looking east from across the mouth of the River Axe, Haven Cliff rises above Axmouth’s small harbour. Axminster is about six miles inland, so Finberg’s identification is apparently a slip, as Mr Roger Laughton, a South Devon resident, confirmed to the author during cataloguing.1 An 1854 lithograph of The Mouth of the Axe by William Spreat after Newbury (Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter) shows the same view, which can still be observed from the end of Seaton’s Esplanade; a later bridge carries Harbour Road across the estuary just to the north. A sketch which may show another aspect of the site is on folio 62 recto (D08481; CXXIII 59).

There is a view of cliffs at Seaton on the recto (D08475), under which other local views are mentioned.