Monthly Archives: October 2015

Mount Edgcumbe is a spectacular eighteenth century landscape garden surrounded by sea on a ten -minute ferry ride from Plymouth.

The Edgecumbe family associated with the ‘bright young things’ of the Twickenham set: Pope, (Kent) Walpole etc. when it was quite the done thing to use your estate to create an idyllic landscape for pleasure.

Mt Edgcumbe gives the ultimate in gasp-making views, terrifying but titillating topography and sheer spectacle

Dominic Cole as President of The Gardens Trust (formerly the GHS & AGT) accompanied by Chairman James Bartos introduced the site to the World Monuments Fund Britain. The GHS has had a long association with Mount Edgumbe, writing their first conservation plan in the 1980’s.

Charlton House (1612) is one of London’s great Jacobean houses, built for the tutor to Prince Henry, Son of James I.

The house is high on a hill and looks out across the Thames basin and the meandering Thames running in to London and the city.
When built, it would have looked across open pastures, marshlands and had Greenwich Palace in its middle foreground.

This view was celebrated by the location of a delightful summer House/ banquet house.

The house contains fantastic fireplaces and plasterwork with racy images and plenty of frolicking.

Dominic Cole was invited to attend the ANNUAL HORN FAYRE to talk about how the gardens may have looked, what went on in them and to suggest ideas.