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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tamworth: Ladybridge, the Castle and St Editha's Church 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 56 Verso:
Tamworth: Ladybridge, the Castle and St Editha’s Church 1830
D22080
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 55a
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Partial watermark ‘R Ba | 18’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this is a two-part drawing, running across the middle of the page and then continuing to the right below. At the top left is Ladybridge, west of Tamworth Castle, while the south side of St Editha’s Church dominates the lower section, with what appears to be an earlier bridge over the River Anker where the modern Bolebridge Street crossing now runs. The latter forms the eastern sector of a road system which also crosses the river to the west of Turner’s viewpoint along Ankerdrive. This and other developments obscure the view.
There are related views on folio 57 recto opposite and folios 57 verso–58 recto (D22081–D22083; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 55b, 55c–56). For Turner’s England and Wales watercolour and other views of Tamworth, see under folio 52 verso (D22072; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 51c). There is a more detailed southern elevation of the church in the contemporary Birmingham and Coventry sketchbook (Tate D22386; Turner Bequest CCXL 34a).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Tamworth: Ladybridge, the Castle and St Editha’s Church 1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-tamworth-ladybridge-the-castle-and-st-edithas-church-r1148721, accessed 19 September 2024.