A view of Barn Pool off Plymouth, looking towards Mount Edgcumbe. A Royal Naval frigate, probably the 'Undaunted', is depicted in the foreground, to the left of centre. She flies the pilot jack - a Union flag with a white border - at the fore, which is a request for a pilot. Her other two flags are a signal and sailors are depicted in her rigging. There are several smaller craft, one to the right in the foreground flying the white ensign appears to be a three-masted naval lugger. Mount Edgcumbe House, framed by trees and hills in the right in the middle distance is the Edgcumbe family seat.

Richard, second Baron Edgcumbe, was the early patron of Joshua Reynolds. His son, Admiral George Edgcumbe (see BHC2677) was later first Viscount and first Earl Mount Edgcumbe. Mount Edgcumbe has been famous since the 18th century for its landscape and gardens. Close to the house is the formal mid-19th-century Earl's Garden, and the gardens to the north were laid out in the early 19th 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 - Thomson's Seat and the Arch for example - consciously sited to create views and atmosphere. To the east there is a circular temple created in the mid-18th 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 27 December 1831 for his five-year travels.

Thomas Hornbrook was the eldest son of Richards Lyde Hornbrook a Royal Marine officer based in Plymouth, and was a successful oil painter of local naval scenes there. He exhibited at the Royal Academy, London, in 1836 and again in 1844. He became Marine Painter to H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent and her daughter, the future Queen Victoria, in about 1833.