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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Inverness Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Inverness: the Tollbooth and Old Ness Bridge 1831

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inverness: the Tollbooth and Old Ness Bridge’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
Inverness: the Tollbooth and Old Ness Bridge 1831
D27048
Turner Bequest CCLXXVII 3
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 163 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘3’ bottom left descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXVII 3’ bottom left descending
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view of Inverness was made from Bank Street, which runs along the western bank of the River Ness. It looks south towards old Ness Bridge (which was washed away in 1849), with the spire of the Tollbooth to the left. Janet Carolan has noticed that the pillar between the second and third arches from the left is more prominently drawn than the others.1 This, she notes, had a small vault which was once used as a dungeon.2 Above the bridge is the hill upon which Inverness Castle stands now, although the site was empty when Turner saw it in 1831, the old castle having been levelled by the Jacobites in 1746; the current castle was built in 1836.
For further views of Inverness, see folio 2 (D27047).

Thomas Ardill
April 2010

1
David Wallace-Hadrill and Janet Carolan, ‘Sketchbook CCLXXVII Inverness’, [circa 1991], Tate catalogue files, [unpaginated].
2
John Noble, Miscellanea Invernessiana: with a Bibliography of Inverness Newspapers and Periodicals, Stirling 1902, p.110.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Inverness: the Tollbooth and Old Ness Bridge 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-inverness-the-tollbooth-and-old-ness-bridge-r1135414, accessed 11 April 2025.