In 1884, while his family were living at Gillingham House, Chatham, Wyllie exhibited at the Royal Academy a picture entitled '"Heave Away": barges upward bound, shooting Rochester Bridge', his first large picture to derive from the Rochester River. This showed Thames barges that had lowered their high masts in order to pass under the bridge. There are a number of studies for the picture in the Wyllie Collection, but this one might equally be for 'Rochester Bridge', one of three pictures exhibited the following year.