Harringworth Viaduct is painted from high ground on the edge of the Welland valley, looking out across open pasture to the long line of the viaduct as it crosses the middle distance. The land in the foreground falls away in broad greens, scattered with low bushes and hedgerow, before rising again beyond the arches into hazy farmland patterned with fields and tree lines that thin towards a pale, near-white sky. A church spire stands on the far skyline at the right. The viaduct itself is held in cool blue-violet shadow, its repeated arches running almost the full width of the picture, so the eye follows the structure across the valley from one side to the other.

The subject is the Welland Viaduct, also known as the Harringworth or Seaton Viaduct, which crosses the valley of the River Welland between Harringworth in Northamptonshire and Seaton in Rutland. Built by the contractors Lucas and Aird and completed in 1878, it carries eighty-two brick arches over 1,275 yards, which makes it the longest masonry viaduct across a valley in Britain. The elevated viewpoint here is one of the established ways of taking in its full length, from the higher ground on one side of the valley where the arches can be read end to end.