Several of the artists working for the Recording Britain scheme were attracted by the numerous water mills that studded Essex's rivers. Once a vital part of the local economy, most of these mills had fallen into decline and disuse by the 1940s. Some artists, such as Rowland Suddaby, portrayed the mills as unaffected by technological change and the passage of time. Walter Bayes, on the other hand, in this watercolour of the mill at Braintree, did not shy away from the sometimes grim reality of the mills' fate; this one shows signs of abandonment and dilapidation, and the mill pool is choked with waterweed.
