The College recently acquired the painting The Castle Inn, Marlborough by George Maton, Oil on board c.1825. It offers an important piece of visual history, a view familiar, through a snapshot eighteen years before Marlborough College was founded. This work, painted over two hundred years ago with skill and tenderness, shows the front of C1 House, then known as ‘The Castle Inn’ with carriages going to and coming away from this then-famous hotel, stables to its left and the all-familiar St Peter’s Church in the distance under an early evening sky.
This composition was painted by George Maton, a born and bred Wiltshire man who was a sign-artist and painted local scenes during the Georgian and Victorian era. Maton lived in Marlborough in the 1820’s, Devizes and Potterne in the 1840’s before returning to Marlborough in the early 1860’s. His distinctive style marries topographical and observational detail fortified by a home-spun skill which has a naive charm. This fusion mirrors the prevailing character and atmosphere of place and thus makes this artist’s work appealing.
Its twin-sister painting is proudly on display in the Master’s study at Marlborough College, Malaysia, while Maton’s masterpiece, painted between 1843 and 1846, also shows the same scene, though this is expanded to show Court, The Mound and the College’s first pupils going to and from lessons. This intrinsically captivating work has been a much-loved visual focal point in the homes of successive Marlborough College Master’s since the 1990’s.
One can find out more about this painting in Marlborough in a Hundred Objects, number 73.
In 2025, The Merchant’s House, Marlborough, organised an exhibition entitled The Coach Painter, The Baker and the Umbrella Maker bringing together, for the first time, a collection of George Maton’s paintings. Marlborough Town Council also have a group of paintings by this artist depicting Marlborough High Street, earlier variants of the Town Hall and The Green, Marlborough by Maton in its collection.
Edward Twohig RE
Head of Art & Director of Visual Heritage
