Mount Edgcumbe has been famous since the eighteenth century for its landscape and gardens. Close to the house is the formal mid-nineteenth-century Earl's Garden, and the gardens to the north were laid out in the early nineteenth century in exotic styles from all round the world, complete with their appropriate architectural adornments. Individual trees and plantations are placed to enhance a magnificent setting above Plymouth Sound and the River Tamar and scattered throughout the Park are buildings consciously sited to create views and atmosphere. To the east there is a circular temple created in the mid-eighteenth century and dedicated to the poet Milton, together with a sham ruin (the Folly) overlooking the Sound. On the far right here the Union flag flies above a small gun battery on the shore (also seen in BHC2677). Barn Pool was the point where the 'Beagle', with Charles Darwin, weighed anchor on 27th December 1831 for his five-year travels.

Thomas Hornbrook was a successful oil painter of local naval scenes in Plymouth. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1836 and 1844. He became Marine Painter to the Duchess of Kent and her daughter, the future Queen Victoria, in about 1833.