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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1834 > Stirling and Edinburgh Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Entrance to Craignethan Castle, Lanarkshire 1834

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Entrance to Craignethan Castle, Lanarkshire’ 1834
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Recto:
The Entrance to Craignethan Castle, Lanarkshire 1834
D26289
Turner Bequest CCLXIX 16
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 113 x 190 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘1677’ top
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘16’ bottom left inverted and ‘340’ top left inverted
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIX 16’ top left inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Made from just outside the entrance to Craignethan Castle, this economical sketch, drawn with the sketchbook inverted, depicts the arched entrance to the courtyard at the west. The crenellated porch is set at the centre of the western wall and was surmounted, as Turner has shown, by a stone statue of a creature, perhaps a lion; see Andrew Archer, View of outer gateway, Craignethan Castle, 1837 (drawing, RCAHMS, Scotland).1 To the left is a narrow structure, probably a guard tower, with a crow-step-gabled roof. Behind the wall to the right are two chimneys of further service buildings, and at the far right can be seen the gable of the house added to the south-west corner of the courtyard by Andrew Hay (see folio 18; D26293).
Turner also drew two additional details above the main sketch: the profile of one of the corbels that can be seen along the top of the wall, and a rectangle with a cross pattern inside which refers to an unidentified architectural detail. Above this is the inscription ‘1677’. The significance of the date to the castle is unclear. It is possible that Turner meant to record the date of the erection of Andrew Hay’s House, but made a mistake, as it was apparently built in 1665.2
Turner made about a dozen sketches of the castle in total; see folio 14 verso (D26286) for further information and references.

Thomas Ardill
October 2010

1
See ‘Craignethan Castle’, Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland, accessed 5 October 2010, < http://canmore.rcahms.gov.uk/en/site/46563/details/craignethan+castle/>.
2
‘Craignethan Castle’, Undiscovered Scotland, accessed 5 October 2010, < http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/lanark/craignethancastle/index.html>.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Entrance to Craignethan Castle, Lanarkshire 1834 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2010, 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-the-entrance-to-craignethan-castle-lanarkshire-r1136219, accessed 08 June 2025.