The River Medway rises in Sussex and flows for seventy miles through Kent. In Turner’s time it was a busy shipping route, used for transporting food and industrial materials.The tall posts, with rope hoists, in the foreground suggest that this is a boat builder’s workshop. The Medway is another watercolour created while Turner was involved with Dr Thomas Monro’s ‘academy’. Although he had visited Kent, it is likely that this view was copied from a secondary source. It was said of works of this type that often Turner and Thomas Girtin worked together, with Girtin drawing the outlines and Turner applying colour.