In the 1930s, Paul Nash and his wife Margaret made friends with Clare Neilson and her wealthy husband Charles. Paul was a regular visitor to their house, Madams, in Gloucestershire. It was during a visit there in 1941 that Nash painted the brick ‘folly’ that Charles had constructed in their extensive garden, and which he had named ‘Ironmaster’ as a reference to his connection with the iron and steel industry. Four years later this watercolour was included among the paintings shown at an exhibition of Nash’s work held at Cheltenham Art Gallery in Gloucestershire. As Nash would note in his introduction to the accompanying catalogue, the show included a variety of works from across the course of his career, among them ‘[m]any of the places that I have found most evocative and most enjoyed painting… Iver Heath, Dymchurch, the Chilterns, Swanage, and, of late years, Oxford and Gloucestershire.’ From the early nineteen-thirties Nash developed a habit of snapping photographs on his camera. There are three photographs of the garden at Madams by Nash in the Tate Gallery Archive. One of these shows Clare and Charles Neilson, standing together immediately in front of the camera. They pay no attention to it, however, and both of them seem to be peering at something in Clare’s pocket. This affectionate snap suggests the pleasant, relaxing afternoons that Nash spent with the couple at their home. The other two photographs show the neatly kept lawn and flower beds, brimming with flowers. The folly depicted in this watercolour appears to have been constructed at the outer edge of the property, beside a plane of grass and in the shadow of a small grove. The pleasant aspect of the work is belied by the looming prospect of a German invasion. Working in the shadow of the Battle of Britain, the battle in the sky fought between British and German fighter planes in 1941, Nash has fittingly depicted a swallow flying across the picture. It is sailing towards the folly, which itself bears a passing resemblance to certain military structures. The different levels of the encompassing walls suggest battlements and the brickwork itself is closely similar to British pill boxes, then being constructed in the south and east of England in preparation for invasion.