Rooker seems to have visited Monmouthshire in the late 1780s: he dated a view of Chepstow in 1788 (Newport Museum and Art Gallery) and exhibited views in Monmouthshire at the Royal Academy in 1789, 1790, 1793, 1796, 1797 and 1799, though none of Usk Castle. There is another version of this composition, slightly extended on the left and with a deeper foreground and differently arranged figures, in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, and also a sketch for the composition without figures in the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth (see Patrick Conner, Michael Angelo Rooker, 1746-1801, 1984, pp. 52-3, figs. 18 and 17 respectively). The last-named may have been one of the five sketches bought by J.M.W. Turner at the Rooker sale, 30 April 1801, lot 119, 'Five - Usk Castle and Newport on Usk' (see Conner, p. 158, under no. 12)