An East Anglian round tower church with a cottage near water signed or inscribed to the reverse ‘Rev.d P. Nursey Ft. / 1840.’ oil on board 22.5 x 29.5cm Footnote: Provenance: Eastbourne Fine Art, circa 1970s; Sale, Bonhams, London, 15th November 2011, lot 3, where acquired by the late husband of the present owner The Rev. Perry Nursey was born on 23rd of December 1799, the third son of Perry Nursey (1771-1840), surgeon, landscape artist and landscape gardener, of The Grove, Little Bealings and his wife Anne Simpson. He was educated at East Bergholt, Stowmarket and Corpus Christi, Cambridge. He became a deacon and stipendiary curate of Dallinghoo, Suffolk in 1822, and a priest and curate of East Dereham, Norfolk in 1823. He remained in Norfolk ever after. In 1840, the year this picture was painted, he had been stipendiary curate at Burlingham St Andrew & St Peter, 8 miles east of Norwich, for five years. He was to remain there until, in 1863, the Bishop of Norwich rewarded him for so many years of loyal service to the Church of England by making him rector of Crostwick, where he remained for the rest of his life. His grave is there still to be seen. The church with its octagonal tower, is in all probability one of the many of its kind that are almost unique to the county of Norfolk, though, interestingly enough, the tower of Hasketon Church in Suffolk, a matter of walking distance from the artist's former home at Little Bealings, is, equally unusually, round in the lower half and octagonal in the upper - as here - but Hasketon tower's windows are double, not single as here. We are grateful to Mr Anthony Adolph for his assistance with this catalogue entry.