The immensely rich Earl of Burlington engaged Yorkshire artist, William Kent, to guide the building of Worchester Lodge. Under the Earl's patronage, Kent's talents emerged. Kent was a romantic and an admirer of Sir John Vanbrugh (Castle Howard and Blenhiem Palace). William Kent was one of the most versatile of English artists. It was Kent, rather than Robert Adam, who first used the spindly grotesque style of neo-Pompeian wall and ceiling decoration, and it was Kent, rather than Horace Walpole, who first experimented with the Gothic style.

Of his architecture, the most authentic and characteristic example is quite modest in scale and dates from the early 1740's. Worcester Lodge, at Badminton, is a little classical house riding high on an arched, rusticated base. It contains one splendid room--an elevated and elegant dining room, in his finest Roman manner, in which the Duke of Beaufort would dine with a few friends on summer evenings.