Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River) is an oil painting by English artist John Constable, painted in 1816. It is Constable's largest exhibition canvas to be painted mainly outdoors, the first of his large "six-foot" paintings, and the first in the "Stour series" which later included "The Hay Wain". It is owned and exhibited at the Tate Britain gallery in London. "Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River)" is painted in oil on canvas. It depicts a working rural scene from Suffolk, as two lighter barges and their crew progress up the
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