Joseph Mallord William Turner Hornby Castle and Tatham Church from Tatham Bridge Inn 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Verso:
Hornby Castle and Tatham Church from Tatham Bridge Inn 1816
D11511
Turner Bequest CXLVII 41a
Turner Bequest CXLVII 41a
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 206 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Lons Kiln | [...?] Ox the Harness O...[?]’ bottom left, ‘Alders | River Sparkling among the trees’, ‘Meadow’, ‘corn’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Lons Kiln | [...?] Ox the Harness O...[?]’ bottom left, ‘Alders | River Sparkling among the trees’, ‘Meadow’, ‘corn’
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.425, CXLVII 41a, as ‘Hornby Castle, from Tatham Church’, with transcriptions.
1910
Alexander J. Finberg, Turner’s Sketches and Drawings, London 1910, reproduced plate LVII, pp.103, 106, 108.
1979
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.366, no.577.
1980
David Hill, Stanley Warburton, Mary Tussey and others, Turner in Yorkshire, exhibition catalogue, York City Art Gallery 1980, p.84, no.131.
1982
Stanley Warburton, Turner and Dr. Whitaker, exhibition catalogue, Towneley Hall Art Gallery & Museums, Burnley 1982, nos. 65, 66.
1984
David Hill, In Turner’s Footsteps: Through the Hills and Dales of Northern England, London 1984, pp.31, 90, 91 reproduced, 108, 127.
1986
Eric Shanes, J.M.W. Turner: The Foundations of Genius, exhibition catalogue, Taft Museum, Cincinnati 1986, no.37.
1998
Richard P. Townsend, Andrew Wilton, David Blayney Brown and others, J.M.W. Turner:“That Greatest of Landscape Painters”: Watercolors from London Museums, exhibition catalogue, Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa 1998, p.104, no.16.
2006
Emma House, Michael Rudd and Paul Clark, Joseph Mallord William Turner: Tours of Durham and Richmondshire, exhibition catalogue, Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle 2006, p.41.
This sketch records the view from the road to Wennington looking south-west down the valley of the River Wenning to Hornby Castle, from just above the Bridge Inn, Tatham, with Tatham Bridge in the left middle distance and Tatham Church to the right. It is continued to the right on folio 42 recto opposite (D11512), the double-spread forming the basis of a studio watercolour Hornby Castle from Tatham Church (Victoria and Albert Museum, London)1 engraved for Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s History of Richmondshire, part of the projected seven-volume General History of the County of York (see Introduction to the sketchbook), and published in 1822.
Hornby Castle dates back at least to the thirteenth century when it was occupied by the Neville family, but the only surviving medieval work is the fourteenth-century base of the keep. The house was extensively enlarged and remodelled in the eighteenth century and again in the nineteenth, and is now a private house. There is a sketch of the castle from nearer Tatham Bridge in the Yorkshire 2 sketchbook (Tate D11135; Turner Bequest CXLV 64a), and others in the same sketchbook from closer viewpoints (Tate D11133, D11134; Turner Bequest CXLV 63a, 64). The Yorkshire 5 sketchbook (Tate D11524; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 4a) has a detailed study of the view from the terrace of Hornby Castle, looking in the direction of the viewpoint of the present sketch. Turner’s viewpoints in the village are accessible, as is that of the present sketch (albeit on quite a busy road), but the viewpoint from the terrace is private, except for occasional public openings.
The reading of Turner’s inscription given here is by no means certain. Finberg read the first part as ‘Lime Kiln on the...’.
David Hill
February 2009
How to cite
David Hill, ‘Hornby Castle and Tatham Church from Tatham Bridge Inn 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www