Joseph Mallord William Turner RA

(London 1775-1851)

East Cliff Lodge, Ramsgate, the seat of Lord Keith

Footnotes

Provenance
Collection of Revd. W. Covington
Sale, Christie's, London, 18 May 1885, lot 169 (bt. Thomas £16.16.0)
Private Collection, UK, since 1972

Literature
A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, London, 1985, p. 337, no. 327, ill. (originally catalogued in the 1979 edition as 'A castellated building,' but updated in the 1985 edition to note that the building is East Cliff Lodge)

Andrew Wilton dates this watercolour to 1796-7. It is one of a number of architectural watercolours painted by Turner between 1796 and 1799 which include several gothic buildings, amongst which is a group related to Fonthill commissioned by James Wyatt (1746-1813). A view of East Cliff Lodge from the other side, once attributed to Turner, is in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum (Dyce 963) but is now thought to be the work of Edward Hawke Locker (1777-1849). That side of the house is also recorded in an engraving of 1805 by W. Cooke for Beauties of England and is titled 'The Seat of Lord Keith'.

East Cliff Lodge was designed by the architect Charles Boncey of Margate for Benjamin Bond Hopkins and is thought to have been completed by 1794. In the gothic revival style, the imposing house with its crenelated roofline was built around a central courtyard and had two towers on the main front surmounted by spires, one bearing a clock and weather vane, the other capped with a weather vane linked to a compass rose. The 24 acre estate also included stables, a laundry, a kitchen garden and arable land, as well as a lawn extending down to the cliff top from the seaward side of the main house.

Owners in the early years included Nathaniel Jeffreys, James Symonds, James Strange and Lord Keith. George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith (1764-1823) was a Scottish-born naval officer who served in the American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic wars; he was made Admiral of the Red and was raised to the baronetcy in 1797. As Commander in Chief of the North Sea Squadron at the time he was living at East Cliff Lodge, he had an excellent view of the Downs anchorage and even had direct access to his gig at the water's edge via a tunnel which he had constructed through the limestone cliff. After his tenure, the house was leased in 1815 to Marquis Wellesley, brother of the Duke of Wellington, before being sold to Moses Haim Montefiore (1784-1885), a British financier, banker, activist, philanthropist, Sheriff of London, Fellow of the Royal Society, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and a key figure in British Jewish history; he was knighted in 1837.

Montefiore married Judith Barent Cohen in 1812 and the couple visited Ramsgate on their honeymoon. Judith was multi-lingual, widely travelled and a committed Jew and the two of them supported Jewish communities and charitable causes in Britain and Israel throughout their life together. Some years after their marriage they rented the Lodge for a year before deciding to buy it in 1831; they were to spend the rest of their lives there. During this time they added to the complex, commissioning a cousin, David Mocatta, to design a private synagogue for the grounds. The couple were famously devoted to each other and following Judith's death in 1862 her husband built a mausoleum where they now both lie, based on the design of the legendary Tomb of Rachel outside Jerusalem which Judith had visited. Sir Moses founded the Lady Judith Montefiore College in her name, a Jewish theological college adjoining the family estate. While most of the Lodge was demolished in 1954, a small portion of it was incorporated into the King George VI Memorial Park; the mausoleum, synagogue and college still remain.