In 1924, Stanley Spencer joined his future wife Hilda Carline, and other members of the Carline family, on a painting trip to Wangford, Suffolk. Hilda had a strong attachment to the area, having been a Land Girl on a farm in Wangford during the First World War. Stanley and Hilda were married in Wangford parish church on 23 February 1925 and spent their honeymoon there. Wangford continued to play a role in their lives, as in 1933 Hilda took her daughters for a holiday in the village. After the Spencers’ divorce in 1937, and the immediate failure of his second marriage, Stanley invited Hilda to join him once more in Wangford, an offer she sensibly refused. He stayed there alone. In later, separate notes, Spencer cited two dates for this landscape, 1924 and 1925. It was obviously painted on one of his first two visits to Wangford.

Carolyn Leder