Mount Edgecumbe's French garden.

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An 1830, description of the French Garden at Mount Edgecumbe, Cornwall.

The French Garden is laid out in a tasteful and ingenious manner. A hedge of oak, bay, and myrtle includes a square area, arranged as parterre, ornamented in the centre by a jet d’ eau, and surrounded by trellis work, forming arches festooned with numerous species of fragrant plants. One side of the garden is occupied by an elegant octagonal room, prettily furnished, and opened into conservatories. On the removal at the back of the apartment, a beautiful antique statue of Meleager is discovered, backed by a mirror, which reflects every part of the garden, creating the pleasing illusion of a cameraobscura.  The garden also contains a statue of Mercury which has a very attractive appearance when beheld through the opening of the leafy arches. Here is also a remarkably fine magnolia, opposite to which is a votive urn, erected in memory of the late Countess of Mount Edgecumbe who died in 1806.

Near the French garden, on a point of land which commands a diversified view of Devonport, Stonehouse, the Dock-Yard and Harbour, is a small alcove, denominated “Thomson’s Seat, in homer of the poet of the “Sessons.” guest house near mount edgecumbe

Mount Edgecombe

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A beautiful and romantic description of Mount Edgecombe from the 1830s.

Well might Sir Robert Ker Porter exclaim “ Mount Edgecombe is the paradise of England.” With the wave at its foot and the cloud very frequently on its summit, it is invested with an inexpreeible feeling of luxuriance and grandeur. Trees of the most varied shapes and foliage clothe its grassy slopes; the gnarled oak, the noble elm, the beech, and the dark fir display their several graces:

In some places long avenues display their imposing regularity, and on others magnificent masses of billowy foliage, disposing the lights and shadows into a thousand picturesque directions, while in certain situations may be perceived so thick an interweaving of branch and bough that the eye can scarcely penetrate into its dark recesses. The mansion, with its octagonal towers and old pinnacles, peering above a sea of leafage, has a fine effect. The summit of the peninsula is crowned by some romantic pines, happily grouped and rising above the rest of the woods in alpine wildness. A thousand tempests from the bosom of the maddened Atlantic have swept over them, but still they keep their lonely watch over the deep.

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