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

Millom Castle, long ruined, dates from the 1330s and surrounds a farmhouse which partly occupies a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century pele tower, which has also been restored and regularised, with the battlements removed. The adjacent Holy Trinity Church is of late Norman date, with additions and Victorian restorations.1 They stand a little to the north of the small town of Millom, near the south-western coast of Cumbria. Here the tower is on the left, with the north side of the church seen to the right. Today, trees still grow on this side of the castle, while a two-storey domestic range has been added where a gable is lightly indicated towards the left.

There are several other studies of Millom in this sketchbook, including the verso of the present leaf (D08976, D08978, D08998, D09001; CXXVII 9a, 11, 23a, 25a), complementing the distant views in the 1809 Petworth sketchbook (Tate D07534, D07535; Turner Bequest CIX 22, 23), which also includes drawings of the Cumbrian castles at Cockermouth and Egremont; the studies here were presumably made on the same tour.

Technical notes:

This page is a face of one of the loose bifolio sheets which form the majority of the so-called Sandycombe and Yorkshire sketchbook, along with a few single leaves. The sheets were not bound, but folded inside each other in a sequence which is not entirely recoverable (see the sketchbook’s Introduction for a suggested order). When unfolded, this page is continuous with D08996 (CXXVII 22a); the measurements given above are for the present work alone. There is irregular pale brown staining along the top edge, which shows through to the verso (D08976) and continues a little way onto D08996 and its recto.