Flatford Mill/Dedham

My sister and I had a wonderful day visiting Flatford Mill and Dedham.

The scene in this photo is where John Constable painted the 'Hay Wain'. Not a hay wain in sight though today unfortunately, or even a passing swan might have been helpful to add a bit of interest to the empty water in my picture!

Cut and paste information time....


"The Hay Wain is painted in oil on canvas. It depicts, as its central feature a pair of horses pulling a hay wain or large farm cart across a river. The scene is set near a cottage, known by name in another Constable painting as Willy Lott's Cottage. It is located near Flatford Mill on the River Stour in Suffolk, though because the Stour forms the border of two counties, the left bank is in Suffolk and the landscape on the right bank is in Essex.

Flatford Mill was owned by Constable's father. The house on the left side of the painting belonged to a neighbour, Willy Lott, a tenant farmer, who was said to have been born in the house and never to have left it for more than four days in his lifetime. Willy Lott's Cottage has survived to this day practically unaltered, but none of the trees in the painting exist today. The water level is higher, as that area of East Anglia has sunk relative to sea level by one foot (30 cm) since Constable's time"


I was extremely excited to hear a CUCKOO though! I haven't heard a cuckoo for over 30 years! We could hear it in the distance and followed it's loud 'cuckoo', where it was calling in the woods. (We were also extremely excited to have the largest ice cream in the world, I think perhaps the boy lost control of the ice cream machine, which was very lucky indeed. Sorry, I must stop mentioning food in my blips...the diet will re-start next week).