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

This sketch, made with the book inverted, shows a view from a bridge of a watermill and church. The mill is on the right with the wheel reaching as high as the roof of the building. The church is at the left and is partially obscured by trees. Two or three figures stand with their backs to us by the parapet of a bridge in the foreground. The location of the sketch has not been identified and does not seem to match any of Turner’s other depictions of watermills. The sketch is unlikely to have been made on the visit to Edinburgh; instead it was probably made before the 1822 tour when Turner used this sketchbook for various sketches and composition studies.