A pencil, pen and watercolour drawing of Grosvenor Gate in Hyde Park during the encampment set up during the Gordon Riots in 1780. A double avenue of walnut trees, with figures in the centre, an engine house to the left and the camp in the distance. Inscribed in pencil on the mount, 'Grosvenor Gate, Hyde Park, during the Encampment in 1780'. The lot number on the mount 1-118/1 identifies it as having been bought at the Paul Sandby estate sale, 2 May 1811, lot 118.

From 1774, Paul Sandby lived opposite Hyde Park at 4 St George's Row, Bayswater. He made many drawings of the park, including a large number of drawings of the encampments set up in the park during the Gordon Riots in 1780. Over six days in June 1780, protests took place against the limited concessions of the first Catholic Relief Act, and to quell further riots, troops were stationed in St James's Park, the gardens of Montagu House, and Hyde Park, remaining in situ for several months. Despite their military function, the encampments soon became places of fashionable parade and entertainment: Lord Harcourt described that in St James's Park as 'so extremely pretty that you would be charmed with the sight of it'. Sandby's drawings often capture the sociable elements of the camps, even wryly including drunk or amorous soldiers 'guarding' Hyde Park. He sent several drawings to be exhibited at the Royal Academy the following year, as well as making marketable aquatints of the subjects. 

This drawing is less finished than the others in the series, with areas left uncoloured. The drawing was possibly that exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1781, 'a view of the Encampment in Hyde Park from St George's Row', described as a sketch (no. 213 in the Great Room). The avenue of walnut trees was planted in 1724.Other drawings of the camps in the Royal Collection are RCINs 451581-451586, 451590, 914678-914681 and 935206, with other examples elsewhere, including at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven (B1981.25.2690) and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (1953P80). See also John Bonehill and Stephen Daniels (eds) Paul Sandby: Picturing Britain, exh cat, Nottingham Castle Museum etc., 2009, pp. 144-46.