One Tree Hill (formerly known as Oak of Honour Wood), was once a working woodland at the northern extent of the Great North Wood and acquired its name from the local legend that Queen Elizabeth I once rested beneath an oak on this hilltop on a journey to Lewisham. In the book 'Sargy Mann: Probably the Best Blind Painter in Peckham', the artist recalled the 'thrilling' landscape that inspired this painting, one of three landscapes of the subject that he painted in 1978, afterwards bought by Alistair McAlpine and presented to the Contemporary Arts Society, and thence to Ben Uri. He used a variety of techniques including scoring into the paint with the end of the brush and scraping away layers of paint with a palette knife.