Inverness: Tollbooth and Old High Kirk

The drawing or drawings on this page poses a problem. Turner appears to have drawn a view of a town with two steeples and a river at the right. If the steeples have been identified correctly as the Tollbooth at the left and the Old High Church (or Kirk) of Inverness at the right,1 then this is a view of Inverness looking north from somewhere around Castle Hill. However, the River Ness is on the wrong side (it should be to the left). There may therefore be two overlapping sketches. One depicts the two steeples from the south, and another looks north up the River Ness towards the Black Isle. At the bottom of the page is a sketch of two figures who lean forwards over the water. Turner incorporated these two figures in his watercolour, Inverness circa 1833 (Inverness Museum and Art Gallery, The Highland Council),2 the composition of which was based on the sketch on folio 2 (D27047).