A fine example of a late medieval burgh Kirk, St Mary's Parish Church boasts the longest central isle in Scotland being 62.8m long. Part of the church was left in a ruinous condition in the sixteenth century and not restored until the twentieth.

The sunlit, sandstone interior walls of the north east area of St Mary's Parish Church are the subject of this watercolour painting. Grass grows on the ground and the building is entirely open to the elements.

Dorothea Nimmo Smith was born in Haddington in 1889. Throughout her life she produced many paintings and sketches of Haddington and its environs. The daughter of the minister of St Mary's Parish Church, it is not surprising that she included this church amongst her choice of subjects.