The first of these two views of Walton Bridges was bought by Sir John Leicester for £280. Turner's receipt is dated 18 January 1807, which suggests that the picture could well have been seen by Leicester in Turner's gallery the previous year. The Melbourne picture, which was bought by the Earl of Essex, seems to be a pendant to the other and was probably painted at the same time. There are drawings for both pictures in the 'Hesperides (2)' sketchbook (T.B.XCIV-4, 6 and 7 for No.131, 5v for No.132) and for the Loyd one also in the ‘Thames from Reading to Walton' sketchbook (T.B.XCV-22 (repr. Wilkinson I974, p.75), 23).

The double bridge at Walton seems to have been a well-known attraction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The old, wooden bridges were painted by Canaletto (e.g. the picture at Dulwich) and Turner did several later sketches (see No.138). The bridges are also the basis of one of the Liber Studiorum plates, ‘The Bridge in the Middle Distance', R.13, published 10 June 1808 and marked 'EP' for Epic (?) Pastoral (see p.61). This in its turn was the basis for the later oil, often thought to be an Italian subject, in the collection of Henry Morgan, New York. A much later watercolour, engraved in 1830 by J. C. Varrall for Picturesque Viers in England and Wales, follows very closely the composition of No.132.