Today I walked into Otley and down to the West Lodge Gates to Farnley Hall in order to ‘re-trace’ the journey that the painter, JMW Turner may have made in order to sketch his drawings for a watercolour painting called ‘Farnely Hall from above Otley’. It is quite difficult to find the exact spot where Turner may have stood, not least because of all the trees that often obscure the view, especially of Otley Bridge. There are also far more buildings in Otley to get in the way than when Turner made this sojourn in around 1815.

However, there are plenty of sights that Turner would have encountered. The lodge gates themselves (which he is thought to have helped to design), Otley bridge, the river Wharfe and its weir, the market square and The Black Bull Inn, the Parish Church and the (at the time) newly built Primitive Methodists Chapel. And, of course, the stones on the Chevin, such as at Surprise View, would have looked pretty much as they do today.

Anyway, in Turner’s watercolour, there are three key features (which are also in his pencil sketch): Farnley Hall, Oltey Bridge, and Almscliffe Crag. I was able to get all three into one camera shot, but not from the angle Turner has made his painting. Of course, he wasn’t using a camera to frame a view (or, you could argue, using a device that often ‘narrows’ our view) and it is quite likely that his final painting literally uses artistic license to create a balanced composition, being made sometime after the sketch and when he was back in his studio in London.