Bolton Castle © Si Homfray Castle Bolton Castles in Turner’s Yorkshire Let the castle walls guide you... This is a Turner Trails downloadable guide. You can discover more about Turner’s Yorkshire at www.yorkshire.com/turner. Turner’s Yorkshire Castles When the artist JMW Turner first stepped foot in Yorkshire, he was quickly drawn to the county’s magnificent castles. Conisbrough Castle, in the very south of the county near Doncaster, was Turner’s second port of call in Yorkshire when he began his 1797 tour of the north. He would go on to sketch at least a dozen Yorkshire castles over the next twenty or so years. Turner’s interest in castles came from his early work as a painter of architecture. In 1797 he was twenty-two and at the beginning of his career. He toured Yorkshire looking for subjects with which to enhance his growing reputation as a painter of romantic abbeys and castles. He visited the castles at Knaresborough, Richmond, Interesting Fact... Spofforth and Harewood, as well as Conisbrough. There Conisbrough Castle © Si Homfray Yorkshire’s Lost History was a growing interest in antiquities and British history in the 18th century amongst the Whitaker’s History of York wealthy, which meant a healthy market in engraved illustrations of was never completed. The antiquarian sites. publisher worried about the cost as it was to be seven volumes with 120 engravings. Then the author died in 1821. The Richmondshire volume was the only one published. Turner used some of his Yorkshire sketches for a series on England and Wales begun in 1827. Spofforth Castle © Si Homfray Turner returned to Yorkshire many times after 1797, often to visit friends at Farnley Hall, near Otley. Scarborough was one place he returned to time and again, drawn to the imposing castle built above dramatic sea cliffs. He stopped off to sketch around the North Yorkshire coast in 1801. The castles at Helmsley and Pickering also made it on to his itinerary that year. His next major tour of the Scarborough Castle county was in 1816 when he was commissioned to draw illustrations for Whitaker’s A Scarborough Castle, Ashmolean Museum, General History of the County University of Oxford of York. www.yorkshire.com/turner Longman’s, the publisher, chose the places, and with such a strong historical theme, it is no Did you know? surprise to find eight castles on Turner’s itinerary. He even Where’s the Watercolour? started with a castle, spending his first day making numerous Turner’s watercolour of sketches of Skipton Castle. He Richmond Castle from the returned to Knaresborough, south is missing. It was lost Richmond, Scarborough and when John Ruskin sold it Richmond, Yorkshire © The Trustees Spofforth where his knowledge sometime before 1878 and of the British Museum of the castles from previous has never been found. visits allowed him to quickly find the views he wanted. He also added visits to Castle Bolton, Middleham and Ravensworth for the first time. Turner’s sketches display his care in accurately depicting the castles’ architectural details in close-up views of ruined walls and towers. He would walk around each castle sketching from different angles in search of the ideal viewpoints, with the intention to turn them into watercolours at a later date. Knaresborough Castle © Si Homfray Richmond Castle © Si Homfray In 1816 he was looking for the definitive view which would be made into an engraving to illustrate Whitaker’s History series. But sometimes an unusual feature caught his eye, such as Conisbrough’s geometrical 12th century keep and Spofforth’s octagonal 14th century tower. He also looked for viewpoints that placed the castles in their Interesting Fact... landscape. At Middleham and Richmond he took to higher Cannons or Axles? ground above the castles to draw sweeping landscapes of Turner painted an iron forge Middleham Castle fields, hills and rivers. near Conisbrough Castle. He painted a large iron object in one corner. It may be an axle for a waterwheel or one of Nelson’s cannons destined www.yorkshire.com/turner for HMS Victory. But more often he found a nearby river with a few waterside buildings he could place in the foreground. He set the pattern for this approach at Conisbrough where he shows the castle keep towering above a mill on the River Don. The mill powered an iron foundry that made cannons for Royal Navy warships. Further north, he shows Richmond castle rising Interesting Fact... majestically above the River Swale from no less Pickering Castle © Britain on View than four different locations. Running Water Colours He turned a 1797 view from the south-west of Richmond into an Turner sheltered under unfinished atmospheric watercolour of sunrise above the castle. his umbrella to sketch When he revisited this location in 1816, he created a more energetic Ravensworth Castle. 1816 was study of light that is similar to the more abstract oil paintings one of the wettest years on which made him famous. At Pickering he sketched the castle from record. viewpoints along Pickering Beck, more or less followed later by the line of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Did you know? Bed for a Renegade Queen Bolton Castle was one of the prisons of Mary Queen of Scots. She was held here in 1569. Mills feature once again at Knaresborough where his sketch from the opposite side of the River Nidd gives as much prominence to newly redeveloped cotton mills as to the castle perching on the cliff above. By the time he painted a watercolour of Knaresborough in 1826, Turner moved the mills down Skipton Castle into the shadow of a gorge and included a herder driving cows along a track. A view of Harewood Castle is also from the far side of a river, though here buildings are replaced with a farmer leading a heavily laden hay wagon in front of the ruined 14th century fortified house. As at Knaresborough, Turner usually drew the castles high up and in the background of his work. This makes the castles dominant, as at Scarborough where a watercolour study made in 1801 shows the ruin as an ominous stronghold towering high up on the cliff. Looking up at the battlements is enough to induce vertigo. But Turner usually chooses not to focus on the power and strength of the fortifications. Instead the castles tend to appear as romantic ruins with tumbled walls and fallen battlements as at Knaresborough, Middleham and Ravensworth. In his watercolours, Turner sometimes transforms Yorkshire’s castles into beacons that glow in Ravensworth Castle low sunlight or hazy apparitions peering through morning mist. www.yorkshire.com/turner When Turner left Yorkshire for the last time, he had created a series of sketches and watercolours of the county’s most impressive castles. Interesting Fact... Most of these castles survive today in much the same condition as they were in Turner’s time. Some are romantic ruins while others are Steaming Through the Views still family homes. You can visit almost all of them to see for yourself the views that Turner sketched while discovering their rich history. Passengers on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway can see Turner’s views Visiting Turner’s Yorkshire Castles of Pickering Castle while Check the Turner Trails website for information on directions, travelling between Pickering opening hours and further details for each castle. You can click on and Newbridge. The railway the following links to go straight to the castle’s web page. line runs almost exactly along the route Turner Bolton Castle, Conisbrough, Harewood, Helmsley, Knaresborough, travelled when sketching the Middleham, Pickering, Ravensworth, Richmond, Scarborough, Skipton castle. and Spofforth. You can find Turner Trails benches at the following castles – Bolton Castle, Helmsley, Ravensworth, Richmond and Skipton. There are panels giving more details of Turner’s interest in castles at or near Bolton Castle, Richmond, Scarborough (South Bay) and Skipton. ABCDEFGHIJ A1(1(M(MM) Middlesbrough A688A 8 A1051 53 1 A167167676 A115AA1 50 AA66 A174A A6666 A676 Darlington A685A68A6A6868585 A6A66A 6 A171A1A17A11717 A666(M)M Ravensworth Castle A19A1 A6A66A66 Whitby A1(M1( ) A610AA61A6616101 8 Helmsley Castle 2 Richmond A172A A1A Richmond Castle A1919 North York Bolton Castle Northallerton Moors A17117711 A1A1 Hawes Leyburn 3 Scarborough Castle A19A Pickering Castle Scarborough Middleham Castle A1A170A170117700 A170 Pickering A170AA17 Thirsk AA64A64 Yorkshire Helmsley Castle AA1655 A168AA116 A665 4 Dales A61A6A Ripon A165A16 A65 A64A6A664 A191919 A1(MA1AA1((M( ) Knaresborough Castle A614 5 A166A1AA1616616166 A656 A59A 9 A123A1231237 A16A1666 Skipton Castle A599 A61A6A6 A65A6A 5 A661AA66A6666161 York A107A10100 9 AA5959 A629629 A658A65Spofforth658655858 Castle A65A65 A64 Wetherby A165165 A1(M1( ) A614AA6 6 A56AA5 A606A60688 Harewood AA58A55 A10A103A1A1031035 A650AA6650 A107A10079 A660A66A6666 A644 A650A6550 A612A661220 A19A1 A61A6 M1M A107A1A1 79 A629A6292 A64A A16416 Leeds A1(MA ( ) A103A1AA1010 3 A61161110 A617AA61A66176 77 M6M62121 M1M A614A61A66146 A165A16A11665 A650A65A A642AA646 A63AA66633 A63A6A6363 7 A603A60AA6606036 6 M606M60 M62M Hull M62MM66262 A1A M62622 A19A11 M626262 A63838 AA1(M( ) M62M62 A642AA6A64642 A1A15A1 A637A6A6633 M18MM11 A639AA66 8 A638A66386338 A6286 8 A1A A1808080 A19AA1 B1210 M1M1 A113A1 36 A635A6AA6363535 M18M180180 Grimsby M18M118118181 Barnsley A63AA630300 A117A11 3 A628AA662628628 A635A63A6353535 A18A1 Doncaster A46A4 A629A6AA626629229 A16A 6 A6288 Conisbrough CastleA618A 1 2 A6A61A661 A1(MAA1(1(M(M( ) A638A63638638 9 A630A6A6 A15 B120BB122 5 M1M1 A159A1 MM1M1818 A631A6331 RotherhamA612A6126 23 A614A6146114 A63A631331 A631 Sheffield A1A15A A621A6A62A62621621 A5757 M1M A1565 10 AA610A61A6 2 A1A A6A6611 A619 A57 A623A6 A1 This is a Turner Trails A614downloadable614 guide. You can discover A60A6 moreA619 about Turner’s Yorkshire at www.yorkshire.com/turner. M1M.