Gilded Valley

Just before the turn of the 19th century, a 22-year-old, unknown artist, called J M W Turner went on a tour of Yorkshire, seeking out attractive landscapes that he could sketch, and later turn into watercolour paintings. These he then sold to publishers, for mass-production in magazines and books. It was a way of developing his skills while making some sort of a living

He stopped at the spot where I took this picture - the brow of a steep valley-side, descending to the river Sheaf. I'm sure that even then it was the town's 'sledging hill' and, just as Turner did then, locals and visitors alike meet and gather here to take in the arresting view across the city, the hills beyond and the sweep of the sky

Sheffield had just had a spectacularly successful century; an industrial an economic revolution. In the middle of it, the 'crucible' process for producing high quality steel was developed here. Local metalworkers developed a process for silver-plating cheap copper utensils, opening up a massive market of ordinary people who wanted tableware like the gentry. A lead mill was established, so was a silk mill, that later became a cotton mill. The river Don, of which the Sheaf is a tributary, was made navigable all the way from Sheffield to the Humber estuary. Sheffield could supply its products to the world. The population of the town rose from 5,000 in 1700 to 31,000 in 1800. It had a reputation for being dirty and squalid, but business boomed

Turner sketched the view, and later painted it - "View of Sheffield from Derbyshire Lane" - selling the image for publication in The Copper-Plate Magazine of August 1798. He too made money out of Sheffield