The return from the chase, Westwood House, Worcestershire, seat of Sir John Pakington

Westwood House had its origins as a nunnery in the Middle Ages. After the Dissolution it passed to the Pakington family, whose main seat of Hampton Lovett lay to the north-east. The present house was begun around 1598 by Sir John Pakington (1549-1625), a courtier to Elizabeth I, comprising a square, brick hunting lodge of four storeys. The striking diagonal four-storey wings were added to each corner between 1660 and 1670, as well as the gatehouse and the pavilions along the outer wall.

It is thought that the landscape at Westwood was reordered during the 1660-70 building campaign, with large formal and kitchen gardens enclosed within the walls, and a deer park surrounding. In the present drawing, Burney captures not only the elaborate architectural splendour of the house, but also the lives of its residents as they return from a stag-hunt. In the foreground a young couple on horseback, surrounded by hounds, discuss their day as servants remove a stag from a cart. To the left a carriage pulled by six horses brings visitors to the gates, while to the right, a herd of deer stand by.