Lympstone looks across the foreshore of the Devon village towards its waterfront, with the tidal River Exe filling the foreground and a band of exposed sand and mud along the lower edge. A group of sailing dinghies with white sails, marked with racing numbers, moves across the estuary in front of a low quay wall, where several small figures stand at the water's edge. Behind them, a terrace of houses in cream, ochre and terracotta runs along the shore, and the clock tower known as Peter's Tower rises above the rooftops, its spire and clock face set against a broad blue sky. Dark foliage sits behind the buildings, and the shallow water carries reflections of the quay and the boats across the lower half of the composition.

The work is built up in Mike Bernard's mixed media technique, combining collage and acrylic. Fragments of printed paper and newsprint are worked into the buildings, sails and water, with sections of text left legible across the surface. Acrylic is laid over the collage in blues and turquoise for the sky and estuary, set against the warm cream and pink tones of the architecture. Detailed passages in the houses and the tower are drawn out over a semi-abstract structure, and the texture of the collaged paper is carried through into the finished surface.

Lympstone sits on the east bank of the Exe estuary in Devon, a village with a long sailing tradition whose riverside houses back directly onto the foreshore. Peter's Tower, the clock tower at the centre of the composition, was built in 1885 by W.H. Peters as a memorial to his wife Mary Jane, and remains the village's principal landmark.