Bevan stayed along with other Camden Town artists on an estate in the Blackdown Hills, Somerset, during the summers of 1912, 1913 and 1915. This work appears to be based on a watercolour drawing (exh: Baker & Baker, Bristol March 1969) which Bevan inscribed "In the Culm Valley" and which was apparently painted during one of these Devon holidays. The Exeter picture is also very similar to Bevan’s "Haze over the Valley", an oil c.1913 in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London.