Greyfriars Tower, King's Lynn

Hearne was both a watercolourist and an engraver. His tinted drawings were made by applying a delicate warm wash over grey underpainting. He was hugely skilled at blending washes to create delicate changes in tone to create form and atmosphere. His work was often regarded as old fashioned. The watercolour was made sometime before 1808 when Greyfriars Tower was altered. Hearne was fascinated by architecture. He like to draw buildings of all sizes, including ruins, grand ecclesiastical buildings and small domestic homes. In later life he became interested in the survival of smaller, pre-Industrial buildings such as mills as he felt they represented a simpler life.