"In the English and Italian gardens more disastrous wreckage meets the view. On the lawn, in the English garden, a splendid cork tree, and also a famous holly, were uprooted. The orangery in the Italian garden narrowly escaped damage by a falling elm."
Many of the large trees, lying prostrate, and others completely wrecked, are depicted in the accompanying view, also from a photo by Mr. Heath.
Seriously as the noble owner of Mount Edgcumbe suffered at his principal seat, that was not, however, the extent of the calamity. The condition of the woods was described by one who visited the locality after the storm in the following terms:—
"At Cotehele, the devastation in the woods is beyond all description. Few, indeed, except the very oldest persons, have ever been able to see Cotehele House from the town of Calstock. This historic mansion is now, however, in full view, and the monarchs of the wood have fallen low to the extent of thousands. It is only as one goes through the woods that the vastness of the destruction can be comprehended. In the glade that fronts the house towards the Tamar, below the ornamental pond, the crash and fall has been so great as to make a tangled mass of roots, branches, and limbs. Most of the trees that are down are elms, though beeches, ashes, and sycamores have also given way to the gale. Oaks have held on at the roots, but the limbs have suffered, and firs have gone by the board. Most of this species of tree have broken short off, rather than have been uprooted. The beautiful walk from Cotehele Quay to the house is a wreck that fifty years will not set in the same form as it existed before the 9th of March. Trees three feet through have been blown out of the ground as though they had been saplings, and in some cases the weight of the earth and stones around the roots must have been several tons." Not less than two thousand trees were blown down in Cotehele Woods, representing over 100,000 feet of timber. One tree alone contained over two hundred cubic feet.
FALLEN MONARCHS, MT. EDGCUMBE PARK.
Mr. W. Coulter, the highly respected house-steward of the Earl of Mount Edgcumbe, at Cotehele, and who resides in Cotehele House, has favoured us with the following graphic account of what took place during the early part of this eventful week:—
"The wind, having blown a gale the whole day, continued to increase in violence as evening approached, and from 7 till 9 o'clock P.M., accomplished, if not all, the greater part of the devastation to house and woods. The noise of the storm resembled the frantic yells and fiendish laughter of millions of liberated maniacs, broken, at frequent intervals, by what sounded like deafening and rapid volleys of heavy artillery, and, as these died away, louder and louder again rose the appalling screams of the storm, with slight intervals of lull and perfect calm, only to return with tenfold violence, which made the whole house tremble and vibrate. At 7 P.M. two heavy skylights were blown from their position on the roof of the kitchen, and from the chimney of the same building a huge metal plate was hurled into the court below, carrying the masonry through the roof and into the room underneath.
"Several of the windows facing the east were swept in as easily as a spider's web; lead and glass, scattered all over the room, leaving only the shattered frames, through which rushed the resistless wind and blinding snow. One window, being almost new, the hinges and fastenings were snapped asunder like joints of thread, the snow lying in heavy wreaths over beds, furniture, and floor. Most of the windows on the weather-side were more or less broken evidently, in the first instance, by the scattered branches of fallen trees just in front of the house. Through the joints of doors and windows the cracks and crevices, before unknown to the eye, the drifting snow penetrated and piled up in ridges, so that rooms and passages had to be cleared like the pavement in the streets.