Griggs (1876-1938) trained as a perspective artist for architects, and in the process became a sensitive and meticulous illustrator, building up a stock of topographic records that he later explored, enriched and transformed into lyrical images. Ashwell was etched in the spring of 1914. In retrospect, this portrait of rural tranquility seems a deliberate gesture to capture a golden age about to be lost in the Great War, but in fact Griggs had made the first drawing of this church for an illustrated guidebook as long ago as 1902. His visionary style was inspired by a number of artists, including the 17th-century Bohemian draughtsman and etcher Wenceslas Hollar and the English Romantic artists J. M. W. Turner and Samuel Palmer.