The Hay Wain The Hay Wain The Hay Wain is a painting by John Constable, finished in 1821, which depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. It hangs in the National Gallery in London and is regarded as "Constable's most famous image" and one of the greatest and most popular English paintings. Painted in oils on canvas, the work depicts as its central feature three horses pulling what in fact appears to be a wood wain or large farm cart across the river. Willy Lott's Cottage, also the subject of an eponymous painting by
Clan Hay of Normandy, France. The word, "haye" comes from "haia", a hedge, which in modern French is "haie". It can also mean "stockade", but it may have been used here because this part of Normandy is characterized by centuries-old interlocking hedgerows (bocage). The French, "de la Haye", appears in Latin documents as "de Haya". The name has evolved into English as "Hay" and rendered into Gaelic as "Garadh". According to George Fraser Black, the Gaelic form of "Hay", "MacGaradh", was merely an invention of John Hay Allan, also known as John Sobieski Stuart, author of the dubious "Vestiarium Scoticum". There are