(Updated January 2019) The dates 1756 and 1827 have both previously been applied to this item. These are Rowlandson's dates of birth and death, but the drawing bears neither of them, so this is probably just old confusion in earlier records. The stretch of Greenwich waterfront shown is a view east along Tavern Row, which ran across what is now Cutty Sark Gardens and Greenwich Pier towards Greenwich Hospital (the Old Royal Naval College). Parallel, on the other (south) side ran the narrow alley called Fisher Lane until the whole area of decayed post-medieval buildings was cleared away by the Hospital around 1840.

The drawing, of which the watercolour wash elements are strongest in the foreground, shows fishwives and oysterwomen landing the catch from boats at old Garden Stairs, with other boats beyond along the waterfront. Rowlandson's usual Rabelaisian crowd includes a young man and buxom fishergirl reclining in dalliance in the foreground, and an older man to the right between the legs of an older pipe-smoking oysterwoman. The inn sign, with grapes as part of the decoration, reads 'THE / SALUTATION / TAVERN / AN ORDINARY ON / SUNDAYS at / TWO OCLOCK'. This applies only to the building on the far right. The luxuriant potted plant adorns the bay window of the inn across intervening alley, which has what is probably a recruitment notice to 'All Able Seamen' posted by the door. This second tavern was 'The Peter Boat', both being situated on the waterfront at the bottom of old Greenwich Church Street on either side of Garden Stairs. An 'ordinary' was a public dinner, which one could attend on payment. The 'Salutation' and 'Peter Boat' existed in these probably 17th-century buildings for a long time.The former was still noted in Greenwich Church Street from 1794 and the building Rowlandson shows had been replaced before the mid-19th century. In 1863 its location was still given as Garden Stairs, which by this time had been rebuilt as a much larger flight in stone on the built-up river wall at the west end of Greenwich Pier, where they still exist today. Another 'Salutation' tavern also existed in Deptford in the early 18th century. Rowlandson did another undated and more developed version of the present subject which has the title 'Landing at Greenwich' and is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. From a lower viewpoint and more panoramic, it includes the riverfront facades of Greenwich Hospital at rear left, with a boat landing passengers below Garden Stairs in the left foreground. The 'Salutation' has the same hanging sign but in that case reading 'LETTON'S / SALUTATION / AN ORDINARY'.