caption death_date nationality field birth_date alt image article_title name bgcolour
newstead abbey -lrb- oil on canvas -rrb- 1861 english oil painting , watercolour 1801 figures abbey 's overgrown , roofless walls , and through a in tall pointed archway nineteenth century dress wander around the ruined william west -lrb- 1801-1861 -rrb- newstead abbey.jpg william west -lrb- artist -rrb-
 william west # 6495ed
william west -lrb- artist -rrb-

william west -lrb- 1801 -- 61 -rrb- was an english oil painter and watercolourist who was a member of the bristol school of artists .
he was also the builder of the clifton observatory at clifton down , bristol .
west arrived in bristol around 1823 .
he started exhibiting there in 1823 , and from 1824 as well as participating in the sketching activities of the bristol school he exhibited at the royal academy and the british institution .
however , after 1826 he did not exhibit at those two institutions again until 1845 .
from 1847 he concentrated on norwegian subjects .
west developed a great interest in optics and engineering .
in 1828 he leased a disused windmill on clifton down and installed a large telescope in its tower to turn it into an observatory .
in 1829 he replaced the telescope with a camera obscura .
from 1835 he extended the windmill to create a new observatory , building a large dome to house a rotating telescope .
he filled the observatory with a collection of maps , globes and optical instruments .
in 1837 he opened a tunnel 61 m -lrb- 200 ft -rrb- in length which he had excavated from the observatory down to st vincent 's cave on the cliff-face of the avon gorge .
in 1834 west exhibited `` the avon gorge from the summit of the observatory '' , an oil painting from the vantage point that he had built .
