Winchelsea lies in East Sussex, a little inland between Hastings and Rye. In the middle ages the population had moved from the coastal flood plain to re-establish the town up the hill on a fortified grid pattern, though it was still subjected to raids by the French. It is at the western end of the Royal Military Canal, under construction between 1804 and 1809, and the Royal Military Road, major defences protecting the neighbouring Romney Marsh area of Kent from the threat of invasion by Napoleon. Turner focuses on the medieval fortifications of the town in this and its companion
Liber Studiorum design,
East Gate, Winchelsea (apparently the north gate, in fact – see entry for Tate
D08167; Turner Bequest CXVIII M). Both compositions are based on tonal pencil and chalk drawings on prepared paper in the
Sussex sketchbook of about 1804–6 (in this case, Tate
D05762; Turner Bequest XCII 43), and Turner probably thought of them as a pair and may have produced them at about the same time.
1 Martello Towers, near Bexhill, Sussex, showing a scene a few miles away, is another
Liber composition alluding to the contemporary defence of the South Coast (for drawing see Tate
D08138; Turner Bequest CXVII K).