Dunbar was appointed an Official War Artist in 1940 and made this work as a result. She said it was 'painted at Strood towards the end of the war, about 1944-5. It is an imaginative painting of a Land Girl's work with an outdoor dairy herd in Hampshire Downs. The bail is the moveable shed where the milking is done'.

The government established the Women's Land Army during the first world war. The severe shortage of labour led to its revival during the second world war: by 1944 there were 80,000 women volenteers working on the land.