The present work relates closely to an oil Stone Gates, Portland, (Waddington Galleries, John Piper: A Retrospective of Works from the Artist's Studio, January-February 1994, no. 16) which was painted in 1950. Portland was an important place for Piper, he described the appeal of the jumble of ideas it gave him, 'The foreshore is now more ship-shape, holiday makers come in crowds and there are ranks of beach huts. Inland too there is a lot of development but the character remains: ... large-scale, airy, maritime, naval, but above all workaday, and not picturesque, except by accident' (John Piper, taken from a hand-written note in a sketchbook in the possession of the artist's family).