Fort Townsend, St John's, Newfoundland, Canada

Category

Library Item

Item no

43424

Title

Fort Townsend, St John's, Newfoundland, Canada

Description

Image from James Grant's sketchbook.

Artist / maker

Grant, James

Date

1852

Type

Architectural plan; Pen work

Location

Edinburgh and Scottish Collection

This image and floor plan by James Grant shows the east side of Barrack Square in Newfoundland, Canada. It is dated December 1852, thirteen years after Grant last saw the barracks when he lived there with his father as a teenager. The plan labels include kitchens, the officers' mess, officers' rooms and general barrack rooms, which may be where Grant himself lived.

Grant has written 'Drawn & planned from memory' on the leaf, claiming he had no other images to base it on. We know that Grant used a painting he had made while living in Canada as the basis for another view of Barrack Square made in 1852. But no corresponding teenage work for this view has survived, so perhaps he really did make this image and plan from memory. The barrack buildings were abandoned in the 1870s and no longer survive.

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Related subjects

Military > Military facilities > Forts and fortifications

Places > North America > Canada

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