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

The subject was identified without further comment as ‘Shrewsbury’ by A.J. Finberg (died 1939) and the watercolour and Turner scholar C.F. Bell (died 1966) in undated manuscript notes in copies of Finberg’s 1909 Inventory.1 The building shown in two separate studies, one orientated horizontally on the left and another with the page turned vertically to its right, is Whitehall, a sandstone Elizabethan mansion on a square plan with three similar gables on each side around a central cupola.2 Now apartments, it stands on the corner of Whitehall Street and Monkmoor Road, among suburban housing and offices, with a car park on two sides. The building to the right in the left-hand view is the small gatehouse on Monkmoor Road, west of the main building, which is seen from the north-west. The site is not far east of Shrewsbury Abbey, seen on the verso (D22276).

The small tower and spires at the right are presumably those of central Shrewsbury, seen to the west from the vicinity. For other views of Shrewsbury, see under folio 24 recto (D22182).