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

The small ruin perched on a high cliff at the top centre of this sketch is Corra Castle, a fifteenth-century fortified and towered farm house which stands on the cliff to the north of Corra Linn, one of the Falls of Clyde. This is one of three very similar views of the castle from around the south-east (see folios 5 verso and 6; D26268, D26269). The present sketch is from a more southerly position, so that the waterfall appears beneath the castle, and this is the only one of the three that really captures the movement of the water as it rushes around the cliff, over rocks and down the precipice to the right. The sketch continues slightly at the right on folio 7 (D26271).

Further sketches of Corra Linn from nearby are on folios 2 verso–5 (D26262–D26267). See folio 1 verso (D26260) for more information about Turner’s visit to the Falls of Clyde.