The whole page is taken up with the following notes in pen and ink. Turner’s pencil annotations are indicated in italics:
Wells 120 Miles from London. X
The Cathedral. the Painted Windows in Do particularly the East-Chapter
House, Cloister very fine. a good Library. The Bishops Palace. Market Cross.
Wokey Hole 2 Miles
Wokey Hole a Cavern on the Mendip Hills
Chedder 10 Miles
on the Mendip Hills – View the deep Valley or Cleft that runs up into the Hill
these rocks are very beautiful
To Cross 3 Miles – (nothing particular)
To Bristol Wells 20 [caret: ‘Miles’] (& City) X Bush Inn
St. Mary Radcliffe – view Hogarths Pictures in Do at the Altar Piece
To the Aust Passage. [caret: ‘12 Miles’] to the Passage house at Beachley.
To Newport 19 Miles
Pass through Chepstow, and Carwent view the Walls, the tesselated Pavements
Newport Castle
To Cardiff 12 Miles. Cardiff Arms X
View the Castle and Church
To Llandaff 2 Miles no Inn
The Ruin of an Old Cathedral & The Bishops Palace only the Gate
To Cowbridge 11 Miles X [?D] remaining
2 Miles before Cowbridge 1 Mile [...] towards St Donats
Distant view of To St Donats 8 Miles Llanblythan Catle [sic] Gate
Penlyn Castle
The Old Castle near the Sea Shore, There are some remarkable Caverns about
2 Miles off worn into the Cliff
To Ewenny or Wenny (as it is commonly called) 6 Miles
An Ancient fortified Priory – The Church Saxon No Inn
To Pile a small Village 6 Miles No Inn
Nothing mentioned X
This itinerary of a South Welsh tour is in a secretary hand, not Turner’s; Finberg
1 suggests his mentor Dr Thomas Monro (this is unlikely), John Kirby or the librarian of the Royal Academy as possible authors. It continues on the recto (opposite) and verso of the first flyleaf and the recto of the second (
D40554–D40556).
‘Llandaff’ is the subject of folios 4 recto and 5 recto (
D00556,
D00557). A watercolour view of Llandaff Cathedral based on the first of these is Tate
D00686 (Turner Bequest XXVIII A);
2 it was shown at the Royal Academy in 1796. Llanblethian (sic) Castle is recorded in a drawing in the
Smaller South Wales sketchbook (Tate
D00469; Turner Bequest XXV 8), and a watercolour in Leeds Art Gallery. For ‘Ewenny’, see the drawing in the
Smaller South Wales book (Tate
D00472; Turner Bequest XXV 11), and the watercolour at National Museum Wales, Cardiff.
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