• Collection of the artist and cataloguer of Sydney Long's etchings, Dorothy Ellsmore Paul. Gift of her nephew T S Paul to the NGA, 1986.

‘The River Wandle, deviating from the foot path, takes a circuitous direction behind Beddington Church and House, and passes down the Park, which is famed for its walnut-trees and noble timber ... Such as are desirous of a short walk to Mitcham, from this place, can follow the road or path, through Beddington Park to Beddington Corner; it is a very pleasant stroll … the stream traverses the right side of the road for a short distance … Hence the river passes to Mr. Shipley’s oil mills … to Mr. Reynolds’s bleaching grounds. Here there is an iron bridge thrown over the river … From Mr. Reynolds’s grounds, the Wandle leaves Beddington Corner … then progressively passes the grounds of Mr. Reynolds, flour-miller, to Mr. Bailey’s, another calico printer; hence to the skin and leather-dressing mill of Mr. Savignac; now to Forster mill … again to another flour-mill … and from there to Mr. Glover’s snuff-mill’ (John Hassell, Picturesque rides and walks with excursions by water, thirty miles round the British metropolis 1817, pp 97, 113).

In his print Beddington Corner, Long depicted the tree-lined River Wandle, with a bridge leading to an old building. Perhaps it is the iron bridge leading to Mr Reynolds’s bleaching grounds.

Long was an admirer of the English landscape painter John Constable and, while this print was based on very different topography, it may be a homage to Constable’s several views of Flatford Mill – which have a similar compositional structure.

A copy of this print was exhibited in 1922 at the ‘Second Annual Exhibition of the Australian Painter–Etchers’ Society’, Sydney, 3–24 June (111, as ‘Biddington Corner’).
A copy in blue ink is held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a copy is held by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and a copy in dark blue ink was given by Long to the British Museum, London, in 1924.

‘The River Wandle, deviating from the foot path, takes a circuitous direction behind Beddington Church and House, and passes down the Park, which is famed for its walnut-trees and noble timber ... Such as are desirous of a short walk to Mitcham, from this place, can follow the road or path, through Beddington Park to Beddington Corner; it is a very pleasant stroll … the stream traverses the right side of the road for a short distance … Hence the river passes to Mr. Shipley’s oil mills … to Mr. Reynolds’s bleaching grounds. Here there is an iron bridge thrown over the river … From Mr. Reynolds’s grounds, the Wandle leaves Beddington Corner … then progressively passes the grounds of Mr. Reynolds, flour-miller, to Mr. Bailey’s, another calico printer; hence to the skin and leather-dressing mill of Mr. Savignac; now to Forster mill … again to another flour-mill … and from there to Mr. Glover’s snuff-mill’ (John Hassell, Picturesque rides and walks with excursions by water, thirty miles round the British metropolis 1817, pp 97, 113).

In his print Beddington Corner, Long depicted the tree-lined River Wandle, with a bridge leading to an old building. Perhaps it is the iron bridge leading to Mr Reynolds’s bleaching grounds.

Long was an admirer of the English landscape painter John Constable and, while this print was based on very different topography, it may be a homage to Constable’s several views of Flatford Mill – which have a similar compositional structure.

A copy of this print was exhibited in 1922 at the ‘Second Annual Exhibition of the Australian Painter–Etchers’ Society’, Sydney, 3–24 June (111, as ‘Biddington Corner’).
A copy in blue ink is held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, a copy is held by the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and a copy in dark blue ink was given by Long to the British Museum, London, in 1924.