Turner visited Roxburgh Castle near Kelso on 10 August 1831 in the company of Robert Cadell. As the publisher recorded in his diary:
We then walked by the bridge over the Teviot to the Ruins of Roxburgh Castle – which we traversed – Mr T. took a sketch from it also from a Knoll nearer Kelso
1The sketch from the knoll has been identified by Gerald Finley as the current page.
2 The view is from the east across the Teviot (perhaps from Kay Brae) and shows the river twisting in the foreground and running in front of the castle mound. There is a view from further to the east on folio 58 verso (
D26023; CCLXVII 57a).
Although Roxburgh Castle was not illustrated for Sir Walter Scott’s
Poetical Works (the collection of views for which Turner travelled to Sctotland in 1831), it did appear on Scott and Cadell’s first list of subjects of illustrations.
3 On 19 March it was also suggested as a possible vignette illustration to the first volume, although in discussion with Turner on 6 August it was dropped. Nevertheless, it was close to Kelso so Turner took the trouble to visit it and make a number of sketches. Folios 36 verso–38 (
D25989–D25992; CCLXVII 36a–38) have been tentatively identified as views of the ruins of Roxburgh from closer to, executed as Turner and Cadell traversed the ruins.
Thomas Ardill
September 2009
