Edward Dayes has been described as 'the outstanding member of the group of topographers at the close of the eighteenth century,' [1] while his watercolours are recognised for charting the transition into the nineteenth. [2] In 1788, he became Girtin’s first tutor, and his influence on Turner’s early work was similarly pronounced. During the 1790s, while at Dr Monro’s house on Adelphi Terrace, Turner and Girtin produced work markedly indebted to Dayes’s stylistic manner and methods. Dayes himself was a frequent visitor to Adelphi Terrace, and Monro owned a significant collection of his watercolours. Interestingly, Turner’s watercolour Cynwyd Mill (Private Collection), produced during his 'Monro period,' depicts the same scene as the present work, albeit from a different angle and perspective. Cecilia Powell’s recent research into Turner and Cynwyd Mill notes that Turner’s watercolour is 'visibly influenced by Dayes in its draughtsmanship and monochromatic colour scheme.' [3]

The mill at Cynwyd was visited and painted by some of the leading watercolourists of the day, from Paul Sandby and his pupil and patron Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn in 1771 [4] (see the aquatint from Sandby’s second major print series, XII Views in North Wales, published in 1776), to John Webber in 1791, and John Laporte, who toured North Wales in 1793. Each depicted the wooden footbridge alongside the same group of buildings, but Dayes’s view is the most expansive, showing the full extent of the bluff, while the other watercolours concentrate almost entirely on the mill.

Cynwyd lies approximately two miles southwest of the small village of Corwen, situated along the route from Llangollen to Bala. In 1781, the noted traveller Thomas Pennant advised his readers as follows:

'Visit from this place [the village of Cynwyd] Rhaider Cynwyd, or the fall of Cynwyd, which finely finishes the end of the dingle, that extends about half a mile from the village. The water of the river Trystion bursts from the side of the hill, through deep and narrow chasms, from rock to rock, which are overgrown with wood. The rude and ancient stocks, that hang in many parts over the precipices, add much to the picturesque scene; which is still improved by the little mill, and its inhabitants, in this sequestered bottom.' [5]