?Tweed Bridge and Innerleithen Toll House with Lee Pen Beyond

1834

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Edinburgh Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 111 x 181 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D26122
Turner Bequest CCLXVIII 15

Catalogue entry

The distinctive mountain in the background of this sketch is Lee Pen, as noted by Turner on folio 16 (D26124). This is therefore a view from the south across the River Tweed. David Wallace-Hadrill has associated this page with sketches of Traquair House,1 but the presence of a bridge and the relative positions of Lee Pen and Pirn Craig to the right suggest that this is in fact a view from just a few hundred metres to the north, with a predecessor to the current Tweed Bridge at the left, the Toll House at its far end and the town of Innerleithen beyond.2 There are sketches from nearby on folios 14 verso–18 (D26121–D26128), including a bridge on folio 17 (D26126) and sketches of Traquair House on folios 16 verso and 17 verso (D26125, D26127).

Thomas Ardill
December 2010

David Wallace Hadrill, ‘CCLXVIII “Edinburgh” 1831–34’, Tate catalogue files, unpaginated manuscript.

The current bridge was built in 1886, but a map of 1832 indicates that there was already a bridge at this point. The Toll House is marked on the current Ordnance Survey map and still stands today; ‘The Toll House’ is engraved above the door. ‘Innerleithen, Tweed Bridge, Traquair’, British Listed Buildings, accessed 10 December 2010, http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/sc-49367-innerleithen-tweed-bridge-traquair.

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