Students examining the shell grotto at Mount Edgcumbe. Shell grottoes were a popular feature of early modern elite gardens, comprising a structure covered in mortar to which hundreds of sea shells were applied. Like many of the garden structures at Mt. Edgcumbe it had been somewhat neglected and restoration works planned. This offered a good opportunity for physical investigations to establish their history prior to any work starting.

A Neoclassical garden seat overlooking the Tamar. Here, one of the students from UPenn is taking a rest after a long day working on the physical investigation of the nearby French Garden House. The garden seat shown is in the form of a small temple and inscribed with lines from Thompson's pastoral poem The Seasons, although in the eighteenth century the view would have been of one of the busiest shipping channels in Britain.

The Gothic folly, looking back over Plymouth Sound. The eighteenth century designed landscape at Mount Edgcumbe is marked out by a series of seats and follies. As well intended to be admired from afar, these were navigational way points that provided convenient rest-stops for the family and visitors when walking the grounds. Our project mapped these and discovered many lost features inside such as a lost mural.