=Mount Edgecumbe=, 122, the seat of the Earl of Mount Edgecumbe. This truly magnificent mansion is situated on the side of a beautifully wooded hill, in a spacious lawn, bounded with rich old timber, growing down to the water’s edge. From its northern and eastern fronts, it commands extensive, and finely diversified prospects, including Plymouth, the Dock, and the Dock-yard, the citadel, the shipping in the Hamoaze, and the surrounding country, bounded by elevated hills. It was completed in the reign of Queen Mary, and is built of red lime stone, covered with stucco; the door and window cases are of moor stone. Its form is nearly square, with an octagonal tower at each corner, and battlements at the top. The hall occupies the centre of the house, and rises to the second story: this room is fitted up in the Grecian style of architecture, and is handsomely decorated with Doric columns, and pilasters of blue marble, surrounded by an Ionic entablature. The rest of the apartments are equally splendid, containing a number of portraits, and a well-furnished library. The grounds occupy an area of about three miles in circumference, which includes the whole of the peninsula, formed by the Tamar on one side, and the open sea on the other, and connected by a very narrow isthmus to the main land. The deer park is on the summit of the hill, and, besides the views described, the house commands extensive prospects southward, over Cawsand Bay and the Channel. The Eddistone Light House is also visible in the horizon. At the principal western entrance of the park stands the parish church of Maker, the views from the tower of which are nearly unparalelled for their variety and picturesque grandeur. The southern side of the hill is an abrupt rocky cliff, covered with every sort of ever-green tree and shrub, among which myrtles thrive with great luxuriance, and grow to an extraordinary size. A terrace, midway up the hill, runs through the midst of these plantations; and a walk, in a zigzag direction down the rocks, conducts to numerous points of view, exhibiting an extraordinary variety of romantic scenery, which is equally beautiful in all seasons of the year. The flower garden is at the bottom of the lawn, in front of the house, close to the water’s edge, which, being the narrowest part of the channel that forms the entrance to the harbour, ships of war of the first rate pass close to it. In this garden stands a block house, built for the defence of the port at the time of the expected invasion by the Spanish Armada, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth; and below it is a saluting battery of twenty-one guns. This garden is divided into French and English flower gardens, with a green-house, magnificent orangery, &c. The whole of these extensive, and eminently beautiful grounds, have been laid out under the directions of the several proprietors, without the assistance of a landscape gardener. Mount Edgecumbe, Earl of, 122. (_see Mount Edgecumbe_)