John Webber, Entrance to Peak Cavern, watercolour, 1789
Edited by Anna Rhodes (Buxton Museum and Art Gallery) | Added on 8th August 2018
John Webber (1751-1793), visited Derbyshire in 1789 when he toured the County with the amateur artist William Day (1764-1807).
Both the interior and exterior of Peak Cavern were popular subjects for artists. From a distance, the entrance to the cavern added interest and shadow to the hillside and the scene is enhanced by the ruins of Peveril Castle which crowns the summit. Robert Kerr Porter the diplomat and artist sums up the view in an emphatically eighteenth-century style, when he writes that the 'queer hole' is 'exquisitely befringed [sic] with hanging shrubs… on its summit is perched with much antique grandeur and pretty appearance, a castle whose age is vast, by the smallness of its remains' (Robert Kerr Porter, 'Journal of a tour in North Wales etc, 1799', National Library of Wales, MS 12651B). This view featured in Thomas Smith's 1743 engraving and it was later painted in watercolour by John Webber and Thomas Hearne.
You can experience John Webber, Entrance to Peak Cavern, watercolour, 1789 out in the Peak District or Derbyshire by visiting the location marked on the map below, or find it with the help of the Pocket Wonders app.