False ceiling

And they don't come much more fake than this. Believe it or not this is the interior of the grotto at the 18th century romantic gardens of Painshill, and when restoration is complete these vaulted arches will have been plastered and layered with crystals to resemble stalactites. It really is a wonderful place; you can take your pick of follies, from a Turkish Tent that has probably never had many Turks in it to a waterwheel that's never had much work to do. Oh and there is also the arch of death, but probably best not to talk about that ...

The Georgian era was renowned for it's rather potty glamorisation of an over-stylised bucolic idyll, when even peasants seemed jolly and happy and pleased with life. I prefer Engels analysis when he said one of the few good things about Capitalism was that it had "rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life"...