F.L.Griggs established his reputation as a topographical draughtsman in the first decade of the 20th century, making illustrations for the much-loved Highways and Byways books. Turning to etching in the years before the First World War, he began to create visionary prints in which imaginary village churches, abbeys and other ancient buildings appear enfolded in crepuscular landscapes in the manner of Samuel Palmer.

Griggs began etching the plate of Priory Farm in 1913, but substantially reworked it as his Diploma work submitted to gain election to the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers in 1916.

Following his conversion to Catholicism in 1912, Griggs's symbolic, romanticised images became progressively more steeped in a profound love of tradition; they reveal a poetic sensibility intensely attuned to the landscape and architecture of pre-industrial England. These patriotic, nostalgic and elegaic qualities struck a chord and made Griggs's etchings popular with collectors in the inter-war years.