J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 1831

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 64 Verso:
Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 1831
D25888
Turner Bequest CCLXVI 64a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 187 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
On this page Turner made two of his three detailed sketches of the architecture of Hermitage Castle (the third is on folio 65 verso; D25890). The larger sketch, made with the book in its usual orientation, shows the south and east sides of the castle. The building was designed on an ‘H’ plan, although the western arm is larger than the eastern arm. When Turner saw the castle it was in a poor state with part of the eastern side in ruin (this was subsequently rebuilt). What looks like a large weed growing out of the south-east gable is a sign of its neglect. The second study was from the north-east so much of the same damage can be seen.
There are sketches of the castle on folios 63 verso–67 and 68 verso (D25886–D25893, D25896), with 67 as the basis for Turner’s Hermitage Castle circa 1832 (watercolour, private collection).1

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.428 no.1077.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Hermitage Castle, Lidderdale 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-hermitage-castle-lidderdale-r1134255, accessed 06 June 2026.