A watercolour showing a view of plains and buildings near Aldershot Camp. A building can be seen on a hill to the right with further buildings being shown in the distance, possibly the town of Farnham. Inscribed lower left: July 17 - 18 -/57

On 17 July 1857 Queen Victoria visited Aldershot with her family to watch a military exercise. It was the first time that the troops at Aldershot were able to be divided into almost equal groups to give the commanding generals the opportunity to exercise their military skill in direct competition with each other. One group was to try and "attack" the local town of Farnham and the other was to try and defend the ground. Queen Victoria records the exercise in her journal entry of that day describing how "We were constantly near the troops & several times quite in the midst of them, — the Infantry surrounding the carriage & the Artillery firing within a few yards of it. How soon one gets so completely accustomed to the noise, as not to think of it."
The Royal Family stayed in the Royal Pavilion overnight before spending the next riding at a Military Review.