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

With the page turned horizontally, the westernmost pavilion of the Royal Military Hospital and the end of the arcade on its south front are seen at the top left. In the foreground is a bridge across an inlet on the north bank of Stonehouse Lake, with the sails of a small boat just beyond. The lake has since been filled in but there is a former railway bridge at or near this point, carrying a track-bed footpath over Rectory Road, off Kings Road, the junction of which appears to approximate to Turner’s viewpoint when it was open ground. The buildings of City College Plymouth now stand above the rise on the left, on a site formerly occupied by Devonport’s railway station. The subjects as far as folio 127 recto (D09358) are all identified or presumed sites within a few miles in and around Plymouth, suggesting a series of fairly short excursions.

There are other views in the area on folios 3 recto and 4 recto (D09220, D09221), and on folio 99 recto (D09325). The same bridge appears in the view over Stonehouse Lake from the north on folio 97 recto (D09323).

Technical notes:

There is a stain at the bottom left matching one on folio 95 verso opposite (verso of D09321) but slightly misaligned, suggesting that the pages were not then bound as they are now.