Thomas Fisher (1722-1836) was a prolific amateur watercolorist and antiquary whose work represents the last flowering of the 18th-century topographical tradition in watercolour painting. He published two important histories of Bedfordshire, and more than half of his surviving watercolours are of Bedfordshire scenes, although he was not a native of the county. He was born in Rochester, Kent, and had contributed drawings to a history of that town by John Thorpe, published in 1788. His lifelong association with Bedfordshire came about as the result of his friendships with two local men, Henry Humphrey Goodhall and the Rev Thomas Orlebar Marsh, who introduced him to Sir Gregory Page-Turner of Battlesden Park, and the Duke of Bedford, both of whom bought drawings and watercolours from him. Fisher decided to record the monuments and landscapes of Bedfordshire because, as he noted, little had previously been recorded or published on the subject.

This scene, showing an un-named old house in Dunstable, with an open-fronted butcher's shop glimpsed at the left-hand side, makes it clear that Fisher was largely self-taught as an artist: the drawing has a degree of awkwardness and naivety and shows an uncertain grasp of the rules of perspective.