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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Norfolk Suspension Bridge, Shoreham, with the Church of St Mary de Haura in the Distance 1845

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Norfolk Suspension Bridge, Shoreham, with the Church of St Mary de Haura in the Distance’ 1845
Folio 2 Recto:
The Norfolk Suspension Bridge, Shoreham, with the Church of St Mary de Haura in the Distance 1845
D35263
Turner Bequest CCCLIV 2
Pencil on white wove paper, 72 x 103 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘2’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLIV – 2’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In this sketch Turner records the view looking north-eastwards across the River Adur along the Norfolk Suspension Bridge, which was built in 1822 to designs by W. Tierney Clark and demolished in the 1920s.1 The town seen in the background is Shoreham (now known as Shoreham-by-Sea). Turner has taken up a position on the southern approach to the bridge. He records its pair of toll houses and elements of the southern arch’s design, such as its cornice and its crowning horse sculpture, a heraldic emblem of the Duchy of Norfolk; this and the lion which topped the northern arch were removed to the Duke of Norfolk’s residence, Arundel Castle, upon the bridge’s demolition.
Although the northern arch was surely visible from this angle, Turner does not depict it explicitly; in its stead is a blank area defined by a horizontal line, which perhaps stands for the top of the arch. In the right foreground are boats moored along the banks of the Adur, while in the centre distance the tower of St Mary de Haura rises; earlier studies of this church are on a sheet dated to 1826 (Tate D34557; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 174) and in the Arundel and Shoreham sketchbook of about 1830 (D22889; CCXLV 64a).
1
See ‘A History of the County of Sussex: Old and New Shoreham’, British History Online, accessed 14 March 2025, https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/sussex/vol6/pt1/pp138-149.
Technical Notes:
There is a dent of approximately 1mm at the centre of the right-hand (outer) edge.

Amy Concannon
May 2025

How to cite

Amy Concannon, ‘The Norfolk Suspension Bridge, Shoreham, with the Church of St Mary de Haura in the Distance 1845’, catalogue entry, May 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/the-norfolk-suspension-bridge-shoreham-with-the-church-of-st-mary-de-haura-in-the-distance-r1214173, accessed 11 July 2026.