Forge Valley, Near Scarborough was a favourite title and composition for Grimshaw who painted several versions of this picture depicting a country lane in the quiet wooded gorge a few miles west of Scarborough. This painting  executed in 1875 would have been one of the earliest depictions of this scene. Alexander Robertson has explained the importance of the views at Forge Valley thus, 'Grimshaw transformed one of his most popular subjects, that of a lane with a lonely figure, into an evening scene with a farmer returning from the fields. Forge Valley is one of Grimshaw's most successful creations... with finely observed detail in the road tracks and shadows. At his best Grimshaw never loses his ability to refine these touches. Such a simple scene does embody the artist's recurrent theme of toil, but instead of dwelling on this, the subject is subsumed into an overall poetic mood.' (Alexander Robertson, Atkinson Grimshaw, 2004, pp. 70-71). 

The present painting appears to be the richest in colour and most dramatically lit and although the paintings depict the same lane the images are very different. Although they should be termed versions as they share the same composition, the treatments are very different in terms of colour, lighting and mood, the most important elements of Grimshaw's work. 

Grimshaw moved to the spa town of Scarborough in the second half of the 1870s in search of sea air and an antidote to the growing metropolis of Leeds. He rented the romantically named 'Castle by the Sea' from Thomas Jarvis, a patron and local brewer, and arranged to pay his rent by supplying pictures at 10 guineas each. The artist kept a coach and pair, and Hackness, which lies only three miles inland, was easily accessible from Scarborough, as were the Forge Valley and Scalby, other popular settings for his pictures at this time.