CORNWALL, ENGLAND—Culture 24 reports that restoration work at the Mount Edgcumbe House and Country Park revealed the cobbled floor and central wall of the property’s upper deer house. The ground floor of the structure would have supported a timber manger to feed the deer that lived on the land; the hay was stored on the structure’s upper floor. The team also exposed the elaborate cobbled floor in the park’s stone seating area. Visitors would have been able to sit and look across the deer park and out to the sea from the seat. “Although the building had partially collapsed and its original form is uncertain—there are no known surviving photos—the team managed to clear away rubble and soil to reveal the original plan of the building along with a rear ledge which would have supported a wooden seat,” explained James Gossip of the Cornwall Archaeological Unit. Additional evidence suggests that the slate roof over the seat had cast iron gutters to carry water away from the structure. Both buildings are thought to be between two and three hundred years old. To read more about archaeology on an English estate, go to “The Many Lives of an English Manor House.”
