Detail 1:
This picture takes its title from the timber-framed watermill at Stratford St Mary, a corner of which can be seen here on the left of the composition. It was situated further upstream on the River Stour from the mills owned by Constable’s father at Flatford and Dedham.

Detail 2:
The little girl dressed in blue, red and white in the foreground appears in his earlier painting, Flatford Lock from the Mill House . Close to the girl seen here Constable also originally introduced the figure of a standing angler from the full-size sketch for the picture but he subsequently painted him out.

Detail 3:
In the lefthand distance, this tree with golden foliage has tentatively been identified as a hybrid black poplar, a species native to this region of Suffolk.

Detail 4:
In the far right-hand distance, beyond the moored barge, is the profile of a dead willow. Constable explained to his engraver David Lucas that ‘when water reaches the roots of plants or trees the action on the extremities of their roots is such that they no longer vegetate but die’. Thanks to the inclusion of this tree, Constable’s friend John Fisher called the picture ‘The Touchwood Tree’.