This is the smaller of a pair of embroidered wall hangings which came originally from Stoke Edith in Herefordshire. The embroideries depict formal garden scenes, laid out in late-17th-century Anglo- Dutch style. They would have been used like woven tapestries, to line the walls of a room with decorative, narrative scenes.
Stoke Edith was built by Paul Foley, Speaker of the House of Commons, who demolished the old house on the site and started to build the new one in 1697. The house was completed by his son Thomas after his death in 1699. After a visit by the leading garden designer George London in 1692 the park and gardens were remodelled to his suggestion, and it is likely that pleasure grounds would have been laid out around the house in a series of formal compartments with geometric walks, flower-beds and fountains.
The gardens depicted in the hangings may reflect the appearance of the real gardens at Stoke Edith in the early 18th century or may be composites of elements of fashionable garden design of the period, which included Chinese porcelain pots and extravagantly fashionable tulips.
Family tradition described the hangings as the work of members of the household, but their huge scale and the consistent quality of the embroidery indicate that they must have been made in a professional workshop.