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

Here, Turner records Thurland Castle, in the Lune Valley, from the south-west looking across the moat to the barbican. With some small architectural details at the top of the page, and the profile of Ingleborough at the top right, this sketch is the continuation of the field of view of the main sketch immediately to the right. Turner also sketched a view of Thurland Castle in the smaller Yorkshire 2 sketchbook(Tate D11129; Turner Bequest CXLV 61), from a more distant viewpoint to the south, near the bridge over the River Greta, and from the east-south-east (Tate D11098, D11099; Turner Bequest CXLV 41a, 42).

Thurland Castle is about two and a half miles north-east of Hornby Castle on the road to Kirkby Lonsdale. It stands near the junctions of the Rivers Lune and Greta, and was developed as a castle by Sir Thomas Tunstall after 1402. Its natural eminence was embellished with a moat and a barbican, and the house was modernised and extended in the nineteenth century in part under the influence of John Ruskin. Sadly, sight of it is now extremely restricted by trees, and there is no public access to the castle itself, converted into a number of private residences. The present writer has dated Turner’s sketches at Thurland Castle to Friday 9 August 1816.