Two ketch-rigged Thames barges carrying hay upriver are in the centre, with another barge on the left under sail and another on the right, the latter flying a hoist of blue, red and yellow large pennants. There is also a lighter on the left and a rowing gig or wherry flying an indecipherable flag in the right foreground. A single-funnel screw steamer is in the distance against an industrial landscape background.

See also PAF0605, to which this is similar but larger, and probably by the same hand. That is to say, probably a view east and north down Blackwall reach and probably by Emily Frances Phipps Hornby, although this has to be resolved given that existing records state this is by Mary Hornby.